In order to understand the position of women in the United States it is necessary to make a brief survey of the laws under which European women are governed, and the social theory on which their apparent advantages are based.
In the first place, the statement that in European countries a woman may succeed to the throne must be qualified.

In three countries only, England, Spain, and Portugal, are women counted in the line of succession on terms approaching equality with men.

In these three countries when a monarch dies leaving no sons his eldest daughter becomes the sovereign.

If the ruling monarch die, leaving no children at all, the oldest daughter--failing sons--of the man who was in his lifetime in direct line of succession is given preference to male heirs more remote.

Thus Queen Victoria succeeded William IV, she being the only child of the late king's deceased brother and heir, the Duke of Kent.
Similar laws govern the succession in Portugal and Spain, although dispute on this point has more than once caused civil war in Spain.
In Holland, Greece, Russia, Austria, and a few German states a woman may succeed to the throne, provided every single male heir to the crown is dead.