ow, too,
who has now twice earned her home, has her annual tax to pay
also--a tribute of gratitude that she is permitted to breathe the
free air of this republic, where "taxation without
representation," by such worthies as John Hancock and Samuel
Adams, has been declared "intolerable tyranny." Having glanced at
the magnanimity of the law in its dealings with the widow, let us
see how the individual man, under the influence of such laws,
doles out justice to his helpmate. The husband has the absolute
right to will away his property as he may see fit. If he has
children, he can divide his property among them, leaving his wife
her third only of the landed estate, thus making her a dependent
on the bounty of her own children. A man with thirty thousand
dollars in personal property, may leave his wife but a few
hundred a year, as long as she remains his widow.

The cases are without number where women, who have lived in ease
and elegance, at the death of their husbands have, by will, been
reduced to the bare necessaries of life. The man who leaves his
wife the sole guardian of his property and children is an
exception to the general rule. Man has ever manifested a wish
that the world should indeed be a blank to the companion whom he
leaves behind him. The Hindoo makes that wish a law, and burns
the widow on the funeral pyre of her husband; but the civilized
man, impressed with a different view of the sacredness of life,
takes a less summary mode of drawing his beloved partner after
him; he does it by the deprivation and starvation of the flesh,
and the humiliation and mortification of the spirit. In
bequeathing to the wife just enough to keep soul and body
together, man seems to lose sight of the fact that woman, like
himself, takes great pleasure in acts of benevolence and charity.
It is but just, therefore, that she should have it in her power
to give during her life, and to will away at her death, as her
benevolence or obligations might prompt her to do.

4th. Look at the position of woman as mother. There is no human
love so strong and steadfast as that of the mother for her child;
yet behold how ruthless are your laws touching this most sacred
relation. Nature has clearly made the mother the guardian of the
child; but man, in his inord