CHAPTER I.Parasitism.
In that clamour which has arisen in the modern world, where now this, and then that, is demanded for and by large bodies of modern women, he who listens carefully may detect as a keynote, beneath all the clamour, a demand which may be embodied in such a cry as this: Give us labour and the training which fits for labour! We demand this, not for ourselves alone, but for the race.
If this demand be logically expanded, it will take such form as this: Give us labour! For countless ages, for thousands, millions it may be, we have laboured.

When first man wandered, the naked, newly-erected savage, and hunted and fought, we wandered with him: each step of his was ours.

Within our bodies we bore the race, on our shoulders we carried it; we sought the roots and plants for its food; and, when man's barbed arrow or hook brought the game, our hands dressed it.

Side by side, the savage man and the savage woman, we wandered free together and laboured free together.

And we were contented! Then a change came.
We ceased from our wanderings, and, camping upon one spot of earth, again the labours of life were divided between us.