A Short History of Women's Rights

Perhaps a word on the status of women in slavery among the Germanic nations will not be out of place. The new nations looked upon a slave as chattel, much as the Romans did. If a wrong was done a slave woman, her master received a recompense from the aggressor, but she did not, for to hold property was denied her. -from "Women among Germanic Peoples" The fight for women's rights-particularly with regards to the right to vote-made such enormous strides between 1910, when the first edition of the book was published, and 1914, when its second edition was released with an update on the effort, that within the space of those few brief years, it became almost a historical document, not a rundown of current affairs. But that second edition-of which this is a replica-remains an important document for understanding the struggle of women in the early 20th century. Its survey of older history is still significant, exploring the surprisingly liberated state of women in ancient Roman, the inferiority of women under Christian doctrine, and the condition of women's person-hood in more recently English and American eras. As a record of a moment in the feminism, this is fascinating reading.