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nydus/The Task of Social HygienePublic
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THE NEW ASPECT OF THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT

of science was heard in Germany; thus Schrader, the distinguished investigator of Teutonic origins, in commenting on the oft-quoted testimony of Tacitus to the chastity of the German women, has appositely referred to the detailed evidences furnished by the Committee of pastors of the Evangelical Church as to the extreme prevalence of unchastity among the women of rural Germany, and argued that these widespread customs must be very ancient and deep-rooted.8 But Germans in general refused to admit that Tacitus had only used the idea of German virtue as a stick to beat his own fellow-countrywomen with.

The Social-Democratic movement, which has so largely overspread industrial and even intellectual Germany, prepared the way for a less traditional and idealistic way of feeling in regard to these questions. The publication by Bebel of a book, Die Frau, in which the leader of the German Social-Democratic party set forth the Socialist doctrine of the position

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