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woman in antagonism to those of her brother, for

"The woman's cause is man's:
They rise or sink together,
Dwarfed or God-like, bond or free."

We maintain not that woman should lose any of that refinement and
delicacy of spirit which, as a celestial halo, ever encircles the
pure in heart. We contend not that she shall become noisy and
dictatorial, and abjure the quiet graces of life. We claim not
that she, any more than her brother, should engage in any
vocation or appear in any situation to which her nature and
abilities are not fitted. But we ask for her, as for man,
equality before the law, and freedom to exercise all her powers
and faculties under the direction of her own judgment and
volition.

When a woman dies, leaving behind her a husband and children, no
appraisers come into the desolated home to examine the effects;
the father is the guardian of his offspring; the family relation
is not invaded by law. But when a man dies the case is entirely
different; in the hour of the widow's deep distress strangers
come into the house to take an inventory of the effects,
strangers are appointed to be the guardians of her children, and
she, their natural care-taker, thenceforth has no legal direction
of their interests; strangers decide upon the propriety of the
sale of the property--earned, perhaps, by her own and her
husband's mutual efforts--and her interest in the estate is
coolly designated as the "widow's incumbrance!" In the extremity
of her bereavement there is piled upon her, not only the dread of
separation from her children, but that of being sent homeless
from the spot where every object has been consecrated by her
tenderest affections.

Nor is the practical working of this law better than its theory;
all over the country there are widows who have been made doubly
desolate by its provisions--widows separated from their children,
who, if they had had the disposal of their own and their
husbands' mutual property, might have retrieved their
circumstances, and kept the household band together. We ask for
such change in public sentiment as shall procure the repeal of
this oppressive law.

We ask that woman shall have free access to vocations of profit
and honor, the means of earning a livelih