The eight million women who form the International Council of Women, and express the collective opinion of women the world over, are not exceptional types, although they may possess exceptional intelligence.  They are merely good citizens, wives, and mothers.  Their program contains nothing especially radical.  And yet, what a revolution would the world witness were that program carried out?  Peace and arbitration; social purity; public health; woman suffrage; removal of all legal disabilities of women.  This last-named object is perhaps more revolutionary in its character than the others, because its fulfillment will disturb the basic theories on which the nations have established their different forms of government.

CHAPTER III

EUROPEAN WOMEN AND THE SALIC LAW

Several years ago a woman of wealth and social prominence in Kentucky, after pondering some time on the inferior position of women in the United States, wrote a book.  In this volume the United States was compared most unfavorably with the countries of Europe, where the dignity and importance of women received some measure of recognition.  Women, this author protested, enjoy a larger measure of political power in England than in America.  In England and throughout Europe their social power is greater.  If a man becomes lord mayor of an English city his wife becomes lady mayoress, and she shares all her husband’s official honors.  On the Continent women are often made honorary colonels of regiments, and take part with the men in military reviews.  Women frequently hold high offices at court, acting as chamberlains, constables, and the like.  The writer closed her last chapter with the announcement that she meant henceforth to make her home in England, where women had more than once occupied the throne as absolute monarch and constitutional ruler.

It is true that in some particulars American women do seem to be at a disadvantage with European women.  With what looks like a higher regard for women’s intelligence, England has bestowed upon them every measure of suffrage except the Parliamentary franchise.  In England, throughout the Middle Ages, and even down to the present century, women held the office of sheriff of the county, clerk of the crown, high constable, chamberlain, and even champion at a coronation,—­the champion being a picturesque figure who rides into the hall and flings his glove to the nobles, in defense of the king’s crown.

In the royal pageants of European history behold the powerful figures of Maria Theresa, Catherine the Great, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth, Mary of Scotland, Christina of Sweden, rulers in fact as well as in name; to say nothing of the long line of women regents in whose hands the state intrusted its affairs, during the minority of its kings.  In the United States a woman candidate for mayor of a small town would be considered a joke.

These and other inconsistencies have puzzled many ardent upholders of American chivalry.  In order to understand the position of women in the United States it is necessary to make a brief survey of the laws under which European women are governed, and the social theory on which their apparent advantages are based.