ed life.
Controversies would arise, husbands and wives would become armed
against each other, to the utter destruction of true felicity in
married life."

"To adopt it would be to throw a whole population morally and
politically into confusion. Is it necessary to explode a volcano
under the foundation of the family union?"

"I object to the gentleman's proposition, because it is in
contravention of one of the great fundamental principles of the
Christian religion. The common law only embodies the divine law."

"Give to the wife a separate interest in law, and all those high
motives to restrain the husband from wrong-doing will be, in a
great degree, removed."

"I firmly believe that it would diminish, if it did not totally
annihilate woman's influence."

"Woman's power comes through a self-sacrificing spirit, ready to
offer up all her hopes upon the shrine of her husband's wishes."

"Sir, we have got along for eighteen hundred years, and shall we
change now? Our fathers have for many generations maintained the
principle of the common law in this regard, for some good and
weighty reasons."

"The immortal Jefferson, writing in reference to the then state
of society in France, and the debauched condition thereof,
attributes the whole to the effects of the civil law then in
force in France, permitting the wife to hold, acquire, and own
property, separate and distinct from the husband."

"The females of this State are about as happy and contented with
their present position in relation to this right (suffrage), as
it is necessary they should be, and I do not favor the
proposition (of Woman's Suffrage), which my friend from Posey,
Mr. Owen, appears to countenance."

"It is not because I love justice less, but woman more, that I
oppose this section."

"This doctrine of separate estate will stifle all the finer
feelings, blast the brightest, fairest, happiest hopes of the
human family, and go in direct contravention of that law which
bears the everlasting impress of the Almighty Hand. Sir, I
consider such a scheme not only as wild, but as wicked, if not in
its intentions, at least in its results."

It is incredible that men in their sane minds should argue day after
day, that if women were allowed to control their own property,