The new woman is deeply convinced that the relation between the sexes attains its true beauty and sanctity only when every external privilege disappears on both sides, when man and woman stand wholly equal in what concerns their legal right and their personal freedom.
She demands that the contrasts between legal and illegal, rich and poor, boy and girl, shall disappear, and that society shall show the same interest in the complete human development of all children. She knows that when both sexes awake to a feeling of responsibility toward the future generation, then the real concern of sexual morale becomes the endeavor to give the race an ever more perfect progeny. And in order to feel in its fulness this command, maidens as well as youths must henceforth demand scientific instruction in sexual duties toward themselves and their possible children.
The new woman is also deeply convinced that only when she feels happy—and happiness signifies the development of the powers inherent in the personality—can she properly fulfil her duties as daughter, wife, and mother. She can consciously sacrifice a part of her personality, for example forego the development of a talent, but she can never subjugate nor surrender her whole personality and at the same time remain a strong-willed member of the family or of society, in the broadest meaning of the word. She must assert her conception of life, her feeling of right, her ideals. And no social considerations for children, husband, or family life are, for her, above the consideration which, in this respect, she owes to her own personality. When conflicts arise, she seeks, wherever possible, a solution that will permit her to fulfil her duty without annihilating herself. But if this is not possible, then she feels that it is her first duty not to fall below her ideal, either physically or spiritually. For this would prevent her from fulfilling precisely those duties for which she has so sacrificed herself; duties which she can perhaps perform later under other conditions, provided she has saved herself from being extinguished by brutality or despotism.
But along with this individualism there exists in the new woman a feeling for the unity of existence, the unity in which all things are parts and in which nothing is lost. She does not, then, look upon husband and children as continually demanding sacrifice and upon herself as being always sacrificed; she sees herself and them, as in the antiquity of the race, always existing _by means of one another_. She is not consumed by her love, for she knows that under such circumstances she would deprive her loved ones of the wealth of her personality. But although she will not, like the women of earlier times, abandon her ego _absolutely_, she will not, on the other hand, like certain modern feminists, keep it _unreservedly_. She will preserve upon a higher plane the old division of labour which made man the one who felled the game, fought the battles, made conquests, achieved advancement through victories; and which made woman the one who rendered the new domains habitable, who utilised the booty for herself and hers, who transmitted what was won to the new generation—all that of which woman’s ancient tasks as guardian of the fire and cultivator of the fields are beautiful symbols. She feels that when each sex pursues its course for the happiness of the individual and of mankind, but at the same time and as an equal helps the other in the different tasks, then each is most capable, then society is most benefited.