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his, so also ought theirs to be? What an inconsistency, that from
the moment she enters that compact, in which she assumes the high
responsibility of wife and mother, she ceases legally to exist,
and becomes a purely submissive being. Blind submission in woman
is considered a virtue, while submission to wrong is itself
wrong, and resistance to wrong is virtue, alike in woman as in
man.

But it will be said that the husband provides for the wife, or in
other words, he feeds, clothes, and shelters her! I wish I had
the power to make every one before me fully realize the
degradation contained in that idea. Yes! he _keeps_ her, and so
he does a favorite horse; by law they are both considered his
property. Both may, when the cruelty of the owner compels them
to, run away, be brought back by the strong arm of the law, and
according to a still extant law of England, both may be led by
the halter to the market-place, and sold. This is humiliating
indeed, but nevertheless true; and the sooner these things are
known and understood, the better for humanity. It is no fancy
sketch. I know that some endeavor to throw the mantle of romance
over the subject, and treat woman like some ideal existence, not
liable to the ills of life. Let those deal in fancy, that have
nothing better to deal in; we have to do with sober, sad
realities, with stubborn facts.

Again, I shall be told that the law presumes the husband to be
kind, affectionate, and ready to provide for and protect his
wife. But what right, I ask, has the law to presume at all on the
subject? What right has the law to intrust the interest and
happiness of one being into the hands of another? And if the
merging of the interest of one being into the other is a
necessary consequence on marriage, why should woman always remain
on the losing side? Turn the tables. Let the identity and
interest of the husband be merged in the wife. Think you she
would act less generously toward him, than he toward her? Think
you she is not capable of as much justice, disinterested
devotion, and abiding affection, as he is? Oh, how grossly you
misunderstand and wrong her nature! But we desire no such undue
power over man; it would be as wrong in her to exercise it as it
now is in him. All we claim is an equal l