THE word "immorality," according to modern usage, applies principally to those laws whereby indulgence in sexuality is governed. That this definition is the result of a new order of living makes it none the less forceful in its application. It is an offspring of education, an outcome of progress, a distinction which marks an epoch in the history of women as well as a radical reform in the sex relations of the universe. The immoral man is still an anointed creature, whose practices and peccadillos slip easily through the network of ecclesiastical and social requirements and are only caught in the meshes of civic jurisdiction. From the beginning of humanity man has always claimed the right of indiscriminate choosing, and his claim has been "winked at" if not absolutely upheld by no less an authority than that extraordinary power which is known to theology as "divine" and "almighty." The woman of the present, be she ever so nearly the woman of the past, must adapt her actions to new environments which the evolution of freedom has brought upon her. Despite the centuries of example, of law and custom, she must throw aside the habits that are part and parcel of her nature and attain to new heights of purity and honor which the finger of truth has so recently pointed out to her. Man is her offspring and for him she is responsible; to protect him from himself is to be her overwhelming duty in the future.

      In the days when women were but barter and chaff in the hands of men, the world was overridden with licentious monsters. In the ages to come, when woman shall have triumphed over inconstancy, a race is predicted which shall encompass the earth with glory. but at present a mighty struggle is in progress among us; in the multitude of the weak there is but a handful of the strong — in an army of the erring there is but a detail of the faithful. It is through fanatical superstition only that woman to-day bears the burden of duty — a superstition which was forced upon the credulity of the world through an allegorical statement bearing the seal of "divinity."

      The fable of Adam and Eve, plagiarized many centuries before from the literature of Brahma, forms the orthodox foundation of reasonable doubt as to the capacity for loyalty and virtue in woman. Eve's so-called sin in eating the apple is regarded by the believer as proof of the natural depravity of woman, but that it is an equal argument for the original thirst for knowledge in the sex is proven by her daring to partake of the fruit upon the serpent's intimation that it would bring her wisdom. In Adam's lethargic intellect there was no shadow of desire — the woman risked all in her search for instruction.

      But theology from the start refused to recognize her sacrifice and, barring her path to progress by the "flaming sword," made good use of the knowledge with which her act endowed it. In the "Great Jehovah's" instructions to Adam there was little to suggest the existence of that desire which dominated all his later blessings and exhortations. The command to be "fruitful and multiply" was omitted in this case, but the ability was supplied, also the temptation and opportunity.

      It would have been a dull-witted Creator who could not foresee the result; a stupid inventor who could not speculate fairly upon the ultimate operation of his invention. Even the serpent was intelligent enough for this, for did he not answer the woman, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof that your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good from evil?" But in Eve's carrying out of her God-given possibilities there was no shadow of sin — only the fulfillment of nature. Had there been two trees, and had she eaten of both, then might her inconstancy have been punished by the calamity, and the curse which, according to orthodoxy, descended upon woman.

      "And it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the the earth and daughters were born to them that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all they chose."

      The distinction between the "sons of God" and "daughters of men" was quite as unjust as it was ridiculous, and the fact that the "sons of God" took them wives of all they chose," shows moreover that the "sons" were a greedy lot and that their actions were not hampered by class distinctions or morality.

      But the "daughters of men," were they choosers in the transaction? Were their inclinations favored or their repugnance considered? According to "Scripture" they were "taken" as wives, they had little choice or voice in this most serious matter. The wife of Ham may have felt a preference for Japheth, but was the holiness of that preference a barrier to her union? Sarai, the wife of Abram, gave her handmaid Hagar to her husband, and the slave, knowing no freedom, bore a child to her master. In the faithfulness of this service was there a vestige of morality? Were the precepts of holiness in this compact of convenience?

      Who that believes in the transmission of virtue or evil could look upon the child of so heinous a union and expect to behold aught but a monster of viciousness? But the "angel of the Lord" approved of the conditions and assured Hagar, as a reward, that her "seed should not be numbered for the multitude."

      Nor is this the only instance when the "angel of the Lord," or even the Lord himself, pronounced the verdict of approval upon what to-day means woman's defilement, for did he not say to Hosea, "Go. take unto thee a wife of whoredoms," and unto Israel, "I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom nor your spouses when they commit adultery?" Moreover, was it not the Lord's command that the thirty-two thousand virtuous "women children" should be "kept alive" for their captors, and was not his personal "tribute" of this number accepted without murmur?

      David, "a man after God's own heart," was void of even the morality of his time; Abraham, "the beloved of God," offered Sarai his wife to Pharaoh for gain, and Isaac was "blessed by God" after attempting to deceive King Abimelech as to the legal position of his wife, Rebekah. Thus it must be understood that constancy counted for nothing, that man's pleasure and woman's duty was simply to procreate in any and every direction.

      The term "morality" held a different meaning, if it held any at all, in the days of God and Abraham, and woman's mission, instead of being to purify humanity, was merely to increase it regardless of quality.

      The achievements of Leah in her efforts to win the love of Jacob, her husband, were enough to establish a colony of immoral fathers, for what measure of holiness could she bestow upon her six sons other than the impress of an affection debased by trickery?

      When Boaz purchased Ruth, "in order to raise up the name of the dead," the virtue of the woman became a commercial commodity and her offspring were the proceeds of a business transaction. In the children of such a union who would look for purity — can any good thing come out of Nazareth or aught holy from the precincts of Sodom and Gomorrah!

      The influence of Solomon with his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines was sufficient to neutralize all the morality in the universe. In a handful of the children of this spendthrift king the blossom of constancy and honor might flourish, but the avarice, the licentiousness and profligacy of the man must have planted seeds of wantonness in the "four corners of the earth," to be harvested throughout "all time and eternity."

      The Egyptian King, with his sister as his Queen, revitalized the corruption which fell to his inheritance. The incense of the harem, arising freshly from the burnt offerings of virtue, threw a cloud over the Orient that stifled the nostrils of decency. The bloody deeds of later rulers, in their unbridled lust for women of their courts, have left a streak of crimson upon society and the church and blotched the annals of history with the stain of woman's pollution.

      In every country woman was the synonym of lust and debauchery, the byword of the libertine, the reproach of the monarch. Even in that existing monarchy which wears the crown of highest civilization the virtue of woman is but an article of convenience, purchased by a title under sanction of the crown or set aside by gold under the smile of royal approval. As the ruler, so the subject. The dignity of the "concubine" shielded the harlot. The custom of a country was alone its morality.

      In his vengeance the Lord condemned the wife of Amos to be "an harlot in the city," and gave the wives of David into the embraces of his "neighbors," and in his "righteous judgment" he chose Mary to be the mother of his "only begotten son," and allowed the lineage of Christ to bear the names of five disreputable women. Following his example, the "sons of God" condemned the sex to unholiness and degradation until, like Solomon, they cried aloud, "Who can find a virtuous woman?"

      Woman, the slave; was omnipresent; woman, the toy, the plaything, the despised, formed the living center for both centripetal and centrifugal degradation.

      From God to man, from man to woman, and from woman to the vast length and breadth of her progeny, the breath of inconstancy and profligate degeneracy. From country to country the infection spread and was harvested through the children of innumerable generations. Man's power was that of a monarch on his throne, and the foundations of that throne were in the tenets of theology.

      Only since woman has dared to interpret Scripture for herself, or, better, those works which give the lie to its dogmas, has the union of two bodies become a union of souls in which woman's desire outweighs man's exactments.

      From countless numbers of wanton kings, from their "concubines" and the wives of their polygamous marriages, there have descended a multitude of men and women who wear in their bosoms the degradation of their parents, and from the wives who have been "taken" and the wives who have been bought there is a host of human beings whose tendencies toward immorality must be well-nigh irresistible. Monogamy, an institution of but recent date, has not yet conquered the outskirts of the immoral condition.

      With the blood taint of licentiousness from the veins of Abram and Hagar, the antidote of a century or so of enlightenment will hardly suffice to effect a radical change in the habits of women.

      The slave knows no freedom until he has learned the lesson of self-dependence. He must grovel before his master until his subsistence is assured, or until his ability to earn it has been demonstrated clearly. The longer his bondage the more remote his release — the greater his servility, the more difficult his independence.

      After centuries of servility and subservience to man, what wonder that woman should learn resistance slowly!

      From being a mere object of lust in the eyes of men since the birth of humanity, how can she expect to enforce her new position in a mere fragment of time and while yet independence is but an embryo within her?

      Every union of body without harmony of soul perpetuates a race whose blood is bitter with the rancor of disgust and dissatisfaction. Every marriage unhallowed by honest love furnishes its quota of mortals to the struggling throng whose moral natures are perverted and whose consciences are branded by the lawless or legalized prostitution of generations. For the few who have triumphed over the evils of past and present there is honor without stint and gratitude unspeakable, but for those others who have not yet worked out their souls' salvation, there should be at least a full measure of pity.