Yet even in the more conservative lands women are progressing. The older dentists in Germany and Austria had to come to America for their diplomas. To-day professional schools, universities, and colleges can be found where a woman can follow any line of study and fit herself for the professions.
In Russia, although the struggle for democracy is barely begun, and representative government is as yet only a demand, the higher education of women has been an accomplished fact for a number of years. Russian women doctors, lawyers, and professors are not uncommon.
Norway and Sweden have experienced a feminine revolution in the last quarter-century. The laws have been overhauled and revised; the schools and colleges thrown open; the trades and professions have flung down their barriers; and work, once a disgrace, has become an honor to women. Sweden led in this movement, but Norway was quick to follow, and it is now a question as to which will first reach the goal of full equality between women and men.
In political rights English and Scandinavian women stand about on a level. Neither can vote for members of Parliament, but both have municipal and local suffrage, which gives them power to exercise their gifts for housekeeping and economical management in civic as well as home affairs.
A WOMAN'S LEGAL RIGHTS.
This growing liberty of women has affected her position as wife and mother. In the days when she had no sphere but the home and no career but marriage, she was a very insignificant creature even within those limits.
She could not own her home, could not choose its location, or have anything at all to say about it. The home, the children, and she herself belonged to the husband, who was "lord and master" in the sense of owner and dictator.
Now, in those countries where women have gained financial, industrial, and political standing, they hold a more dignified position in the home. Formerly a widow could be left penniless and her children willed away from her.
The present English law gives to the widow one-third of the property, and half the guardianship of the children. In case of divorce, the children under sixteen belong to the mother, unless she is notoriously unfit to have them.
Very similar to these are the laws in the British colonies, the United States, and Scandinavia. In these countries, too, with the exception of certain of our States, a married woman can own property, earn money, and collect her own wages, sue or be sued, make a contract with others, and in some places with her own husband.