Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 Part 12

"Roadside, near Philadelphia,

"4th Mo., 30th, '61.

"My Dear Lydia Mott:

"I have wished, ever since parting with thee and our other dear friends in Albany, to send thee a line, and have only waited in the hope of contributing a little 'substantial aid' toward your neat and valuable 'depository.' The twenty dollars inclosed is from our Female Anti-slavery Society.

"I see the annual meeting, in New York, is not to be held this spring. Sister Martha is here, and was expecting to attend both anniversaries. But we now think the woman's rights meeting had better not be attempted, and she has written Elizabeth C. Stanton to this effect.

"I was well satisfied with being at the Albany meeting. I have since met with the following, from a speech of Lord Brougham's, which pleased me, as being as radical as mine in your stately Hall of Representatives:

"'Before women can have any justice by the laws of England, there must be a total reconstruction of the whole marriage system; for any attempt to amend it would prove useless. The great charter, in establis.h.i.+ng the supremacy of law over prerogative, provides only for justice between man and man; for woman nothing is left but common law, acc.u.mulations and modifications of original Gothic and Roman heathenism, which no amount of filtration through ecclesiastical courts could change into Christian laws. They are declared unworthy a Christian people by great jurists; still they remain unchanged.'

"So Elizabeth Stanton will see that I have authority for going to the root of the evil.

"Thine,

"LUCRETIA MOTT."

Those of us who met in Albany talked the matter over in regard to a free discussion of the divorce question at the coming convention in New York.

It was the opinion of those present that, as the laws on marriage and divorce were very unequal for man and woman, this was a legitimate subject for discussion on our platform; accordingly I presented a series of resolutions, at the annual convention, in New York city, to which I spoke for over an hour. I was followed by Antoinette L, Brown, who also presented a series of resolutions in opposition to mine. She was, in turn, answered by Ernestine L. Rose. Wendell Phillips then arose, and, in an impressive manner p.r.o.nounced the whole discussion irrelevant to our platform, and moved that neither the speeches nor resolutions go on the records of the convention. As I greatly admired Wendell Phillips, and appreciated his good opinion, I was surprised and humiliated to find myself under the ban of his disapprobation. My face was scarlet, and I trembled with mingled feelings of doubt and fear--doubt as to the wisdom of my position and fear lest the convention should repudiate the whole discussion. My emotion was so apparent that Rev. Samuel Longfellow, a brother of the poet, who sat beside me, whispered in my ear, "Nevertheless you are right, and the convention will sustain you."

Mr. Phillips said that as marriage concerned man and woman alike, and the laws bore equally on them, women had no special ground for complaint, although, in my speech, I had quoted many laws to show the reverse. Mr. Garrison and Rev. Antoinette L. Brown were alike opposed to Mr. Phillips' motion, and claimed that marriage and divorce were legitimate subjects for discussion on our platform. Miss Anthony closed the debate. She said: "I hope Mr. Phillips will withdraw his motion that these resolutions shall not appear on the records of the convention. I am very sure that it would be contrary to all parliamentary usage to say that, when the speeches which enforced and advocated the resolutions are reported and published in the proceedings, the resolutions shall not be placed there. And as to the point that this question does not belong to this platform--from that I totally dissent. Marriage has ever been a one-sided matter, resting most unequally upon the s.e.xes. By it man gains all; woman loses all; tyrant law and l.u.s.t reign supreme with him; meek submission and ready obedience alone befit her. Woman has never been consulted; her wish has never been taken into consideration as regards the terms of the marriage compact. By law, public sentiment, and religion,--from the time of Moses down to the present day,--woman has never been thought of other than as a piece of property, to be disposed of at the will and pleasure of man. And at this very hour, by our statute books, by our (so-called) enlightened Christian civilization, she has no voice whatever in saying what shall be the basis of the relation. She must accept marriage as man proffers it, or not at all.

"And then, again, on Mr. Phillips' own ground, the discussion is perfectly in order, since nearly all the wrongs of which we complain grow out of the inequality of the marriage laws, that rob the wife of the right to herself and her children; that make her the slave of the man she marries. I hope, therefore, the resolutions will be allowed to go out to the public; that there may be a fair report of the ideas which have actually been presented here; that they may not be left to the mercy of the secular press, I trust the convention will not vote to forbid the publication of those resolutions with the proceedings."

Rev. William Hoisington (the blind preacher) followed Miss Anthony, and said: "Publish all that you have done here, and let the public know it."

The question was then put, on the motion of Mr. Phillips, and it was lost.

As Mr. Greeley, in commenting on the convention, took the same ground with Mr. Phillips, that the laws on marriage and divorce were equal for man and woman, I answered them in the following letter to the New York _Tribune_.

"_To the Editor of the New York Tribune_:

"Sir: At our recent National Woman's Rights Convention many were surprised to hear Wendell Phillips object to the question of marriage and divorce as irrelevant to our platform. He said: 'We had no right to discuss here any laws or customs but those where inequality existed for the s.e.xes; that the laws on marriage and divorce rested equally on man and woman; that he suffers, as much as she possibly could, the wrongs and abuses of an ill-a.s.sorted marriage.'

"Now it must strike every careful thinker that an immense difference rests in the fact that man has made the laws cunningly and selfishly for his own purpose. From c.o.ke down to Kent, who can cite one clause of the marriage contract where woman has the advantage? When man suffers from false legislation he has his remedy in his own hands. Shall woman be denied the right of protest against laws in which she had no voice; laws which outrage the holiest affections of her nature; laws which transcend the limits of human legislation, in a convention called for the express purpose of considering her wrongs? He might as well object to a protest against the injustice of hanging a woman, because capital punishment bears equally on man and woman.

"The contract of marriage is by no means equal. The law permits the girl to marry at twelve years of age, while it requires several years more of experience on the part of the boy. In entering this compact, the man gives up nothing that he before possessed, he is a man still; while the legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage, and, henceforth, she is known but in and through the husband. She is nameless, purseless, childless--though a woman, an heiress, and a mother.

"Blackstone says: 'The husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.' Chancellor Kent, in his 'Commentaries' says: 'The legal effects of marriage are generally deducible from the principle of the common law, by which the husband and wife are regarded as one person, and her legal existence and authority lost or suspended during the continuance of the matrimonial union.'

"The wife is regarded by all legal authorities as a _feme covert_, placed wholly _sub potestate viri_. Her moral responsibility, even, is merged in her husband. The law takes it for granted that the wife lives in fear of her husband; that his command is her highest law; hence a wife is not punishable for the theft committed in the presence of her husband. An unmarried woman can make contracts, sue and be sued, enjoy the rights of property, to her inheritance--to her wages--to her person--to her children; but, in marriage, she is robbed by law of all and every natural and civil right. Kent further says: 'The disability of the wife to contract, so as to bind herself, arises not from want of discretion, but because she has entered into an indissoluble connection by which she is placed under the power and protection of her husband.' She is possessed of certain rights until she is married; then all are suspended, to revive, again, the moment the breath goes out of the husband's body. (See 'Cowen's Treatise,' vol. 2, p. 709.)

"If the contract be equal, whence come the terms 'marital power,'

'marital rights,' 'obedience and restraint,' 'dominion and control,' 'power and protection,' etc., etc.? Many cases are stated, showing the exercise of a most questionable power over the wife, sustained by the courts. (See 'Bishop on Divorce,' p. 489.)

"The laws on divorce are quite as unequal as those on marriage; yea, far more so. The advantages seem to be all on one side and the penalties on the other. In case of divorce, if the husband be not the guilty party, the wife goes out of the partners.h.i.+p penniless.

(Kent, vol. 2, p. 33; 'Bishop on Divorce,' p. 492.)

"In New York, and some other States, the wife of the guilty husband can now sue for a divorce in her own name, and the costs come out of the husband's estate; but, in the majority of the States, she is still compelled to sue in the name of another, as she has no means for paying costs, even though she may have brought her thousands into the partners.h.i.+p. 'The allowance to the innocent wife of _ad interim_ alimony and money to sustain the suit, is not regarded as a strict right in her, but of sound discretion in the court.'

('Bishop on Divorce,' p. 581.)

"'Many jurists,' says Kent, 'are of opinion that the adultery of the husband ought not to be noticed or made subject to the same animadversions as that of the wife, because it is not evidence of such entire depravity nor equally injurious in its effects upon the morals, good order, and happiness of the domestic life.

Montesquieu, Pothier, and Dr. Taylor all insist that the cases of husband and wife ought to be distinguished, and that the violation of the marriage vow, on the part of the wife, is the most mischievous, and the prosecution ought to be confined to the offense on her part. ("Esprit des Lois," tom. 3, 186; "Traite du Contrat de Mariage," No. 516; "Elements of Civil Law," p. 254).'

"Say you, 'These are but the opinions of men'? On what else, I ask, are the hundreds of women depending, who, this hour, demand in our courts a release from burdensome contracts? Are not these delicate matters left wholly to the discretion of courts? Are not young women from the first families dragged into our courts,--into a.s.semblies of men exclusively,--the judges all men, the jurors all men? No true woman there to s.h.i.+eld them, by her presence, from gross and impertinent questionings, to pity their misfortunes, or to protest against their wrongs?

"The administration of justice depends far more on the opinions of eminent jurists than on law alone, for law is powerless when at variance with public sentiment.

"Do not the above citations clearly prove inequality? Are not the very letter and spirit of the marriage contract based on the idea of the supremacy of man as the keeper of woman's virtue--her sole protector and support? Out of marriage, woman asks nothing, at this hour, but the elective franchise. It is only in marriage that she must demand her right to person, children, property, wages, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How can we discuss all the laws and conditions of marriage, without perceiving its essential essence, end, and aim? Now, whether the inst.i.tution of marriage be human or divine, whether regarded as indissoluble by ecclesiastical courts or dissoluble by civil courts, woman, finding herself equally degraded in each and every phase of it, always the victim of the inst.i.tution, it is her right and her duty to sift the relation and the compact through and through, until she finds out the true cause of her false position. How can we go before the legislatures of our respective States and demand new laws, or no laws, on divorce, until we have some idea of what the true relation is?

"We decide the whole question of slavery by settling the sacred rights of the individual. We a.s.sert that man cannot hold property in man, and reject the whole code of laws that conflicts with the self-evident truth of the a.s.sertion.

"Again, I ask, is it possible to discuss all the laws of a relation, and not touch the relation itself?

"Yours respectfully,

"Elizabeth Cady Stanton."

The discussion on the question of marriage and divorce occupied one entire session of the convention, and called down on us severe criticisms from the metropolitan and State press. So alarming were the comments on what had been said that I began to feel that I had inadvertently taken out the underpinning from the social system. Enemies were unsparing in their denunciations, and friends ridiculed the whole proceeding. I was constantly called on for a definition of marriage and asked to describe home life as it would be when men changed their wives every Christmas. Letters and newspapers poured in upon me, asking all manner of absurd questions, until I often wept with vexation. So many things, that I had neither thought nor said, were attributed to me that, at times, I really doubted my own ident.i.ty.

However, in the progress of events the excitement died away, the earth seemed to turn on its axis as usual, women were given in marriage, children were born, fires burned as brightly as ever at the domestic altars, and family life, to all appearances, was as stable as usual.

Public attention was again roused to this subject by the McFarland-Richardson trial, in which the former shot the latter, being jealous of his attentions to his wife. McFarland was a brutal, improvident husband, who had completely alienated his wife's affections, while Mr. Richardson, who had long been a cherished acquaintance of the family, befriended the wife in the darkest days of her misery. She was a very refined, attractive woman, and a large circle of warm friends stood by her through the fierce ordeal of her husband's trial.

Though McFarland did not deny that he killed Richardson, yet he was acquitted on the plea of insanity, and was, at the same time, made the legal guardian of his child, a boy, then, twelve years of age, and walked out of the court with him, hand in hand. What a travesty on justice and common sense that, while a man is declared too insane to be held responsible for taking the life of another, he might still be capable of directing the life and education of a child! And what an insult to that intelligent mother, who had devoted twelve years of her life to his care, while his worthless father had not provided for them the necessaries of life!

She married Mr. Richardson on his deathbed. The ceremony was performed by Henry Ward Beecher and Rev. O.B. Frothingham, while such men as Horace Greeley and Joshua Leavitt witnessed the solemn service. Though no shadow had ever dimmed Mrs. Richardson's fair fame, yet she was rudely treated in the court and robbed of her child, though by far the most fitting parent to be intrusted with his care.

As the indignation among women was general and at white heat with regard to her treatment, Miss Anthony suggested to me, one day, that it would be a golden opportunity to give women a lesson on their helplessness under the law--wholly in the power of man as to their domestic relations, as well as to their civil and political rights. Accordingly we decided to hold some meetings, for women alone, to protest against the decision of this trial, the general conduct of the case, the tone of the press, and the laws that made it possible to rob a mother of her child.

Many ladies readily enlisted in the movement. I was invited to make the speech on the occasion, and Miss Anthony arranged for two great meetings, one in Apollo Hall, New York city, and one in the Academy of Music, in Brooklyn. The result was all that we could desire. Miss Anthony, with wonderful executive ability, made all the arrangements, taking on her own shoulders the whole financial responsibility.

My latest thought on this question I gave in _The Arena_ of April, 1894, from which I quote the following:

"There is a demand just now for an amendment to the United States Const.i.tution that shall make the laws of marriage and divorce the same in all the States of the Union. As the suggestion comes uniformly from those who consider the present divorce laws too liberal, we may infer that the proposed national law is to place the whole question on a narrower basis, rendering null and void the laws that have been pa.s.sed in a broader spirit, according to the needs and experiences, in certain sections, of the sovereign people. And here let us bear in mind that the widest possible law would not make divorce obligatory on anyone, while a restricted law, on the contrary, would compel many, marrying, perhaps, under more liberal laws, to remain in uncongenial relations.

"As we are still in the experimental stage on this question, we are not qualified to make a perfect law that would work satisfactorily over so vast an area as our boundaries now embrace. I see no evidence in what has been published on this question, of late, by statesmen, ecclesiastics, lawyers, and judges, that any of them have thought sufficiently on the subject to prepare a well-digested code, or a comprehensive amendment to the national Const.i.tution.

Some view it as a civil contract, though not governed by the laws of other contracts; some view it as a religious ordinance--a sacrament; some think it a relation to be regulated by the State, others by the Church, and still others think it should be left wholly to the individual. With this wide divergence of opinion among our leading minds, it is quite evident that we are not prepared for a national law.

"Moreover, as woman is the most important factor in the marriage relation, her enfranchis.e.m.e.nt is the primal step in deciding the basis of family life. Before public opinion on this question crystallizes into an amendment to the national Const.i.tution, the wife and mother must have a voice in the governing power and must be heard, on this great problem, in the halls of legislation.

"There are many advantages in leaving all these questions, as now, to the States. Local self-government more readily permits of experiments on mooted questions, which are the outcome of the needs and convictions of the community. The smaller the area over which legislation extends, the more pliable are the laws. By leaving the States free to experiment in their local affairs, we can judge of the working of different laws under varying circ.u.mstances, and thus learn their comparative merits. The progress education has achieved in America is due to the fact that we have left our system of public instruction in the hands of local authorities. How different would be the solution of the great educational question of manual labor in the schools, if the matter had to be settled at Was.h.i.+ngton!

"The whole nation might find itself pledged to a scheme that a few years would prove wholly impracticable. Not only is the town meeting, as Emerson says, 'the cradle of American liberties,' but it is the nursery of Yankee experiment and wisdom. England, with its clumsy national code of education, making one inflexible standard of scholars.h.i.+p for the bright children of the manufacturing districts and the dull brains of the agricultural counties, should teach us a lesson as to the wisdom of keeping apart state and national government.

"Before we can decide the just grounds for divorce, we must get a clear idea of what const.i.tutes marriage. In a true relation the chief object is the loving companions.h.i.+p of man and woman, their capacity for mutual help and happiness and for the development of all that is n.o.blest in each other. The second object is the building up a home and family, a place of rest, peace, security, in which child-life can bud and blossom like flowers in the suns.h.i.+ne.