This chapter can be condensed in few words. It contains only the conclusions that arise from what has been said so far about the position of women in future society, conclusions that the reader may easily draw for himself at this point. The woman of future society is socially and economically independent; she is no longer subject to even a vestige of dominion and exploitation; she is free, the peer of man, mistress of her lot. Her education is the same as that of man, with such exceptions as the difference of sex and biological function demand. Living under natural conditions, she is able to unfold and exercise her mental powers and faculties. For her occupation, she chooses those fields that correspond with her wishes, inclinations, and natural abilities, and she works under the same conditions as man. Even if she is engaged as a practical working-woman in some field or another, she may be an educator, teacher, or nurse in the second part of her day; she may practice some type of art, or cultivate some branch of science in the third part; and she may fill some administrative function in the fourth. She joins in studies, completes chores, enjoys pleasures and social intercourse with either her sisters or with men – as she pleases or as occasion serves.
In choosing love, she is, like man, free and unhampered. She woos or is wooed, and seals the bond out of no consideration other than her own inclination. This bond is a private contract, celebrated without the intervention of any functionary – just as marriage was a private contract until well into the Middle Ages. Socialism creates nothing new here: it merely restores, at a higher level of civilization and under new social forms, that which prevailed at a more primitive social stage before private property began to rule society.