Select the correct answer. What is most likely the speaker's intent in this excerpt from the speech "Solitude of Self" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
The isolation of every human soul, and the necessity of self-dependence, must give each individual the right to choose his own
surroundings.
The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education, for the full development of her faculties, forces of mind
and body; for giving her the most enlarged freedom of thought and action; a complete emancipation from all forms of bondage, of custom,
dependence, superstition; from all the crippling influences of fear--is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life. The
strongest reason why we ask for woman . voice in the government under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to believe; equality in
social life, where she is the chief factor; a place in the trades and professions, where she may earn her bread, iS because of her birthright to
self-sovereignty; because, as an individual, she must rely on herself. No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and
supported, nor how much men desire to have them to do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency, they
must know something of the laws of navigation. To guide our own craft, we must be captain, pilot, engineer; with chart and compass to
stand at the wheel; o watch the winds and waves, and know when to take in the O sail, and to read the signs in the firmament over all. It
matters not whether the solitary voyager is man or woman; nature, having endowed them equally, leaves them to their own skill and
of judgment in the hour of danger, and, if not equal to the occasion, alike they perish.
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