i-biblical.

"It is equally opposed to nature and the established order of society
founded upon it. We do not intend to go into any physiological argument.
There is one broad striking fact in the constitution of the human
species which ought to set the question at rest for ever. This is the
fact of maternity.... From this there arise, in the first place,
physical impediments which, during the best part of the female life, are
absolutely insurmountable, except at a sacrifice of almost everything
that distinguishes the civilized human from the animal, or beastly, and
savage state. As a secondary, yet inevitably resulting consequence,
there come domestic and social hindrances which still more completely
draw the line between the male and female duties.... Every attempt to
break through them, therefore, must be pronounced as unnatural as it is
irreligious and profane.... The most serious importance of this modern
'woman's rights' doctrine is derived from its direct bearing upon the
marriage institution. The blindest must see that such a change as is
proposed in the relations and life of the sexes cannot leave either
marriage or the family in their present state. It must vitally affect,
and in time wholly sever, that oneness which has ever been at the
foundation of the marriage idea, from the primitive declaration in
Genesis to the latest decision of the common law. This idea gone--and it
is totally at war with the modern theory of 'woman's rights'--marriage
is reduced to the nature of a contract simply.... That which has no
higher sanction than the will of the contracting parties, must, of
course, be at any time revocable by the same authority that first
created it. That which makes no change in the personal relations, the
personal rights, the personal duties, is not the holy marriage _union_,
but the unholy _alliance_ of concubinage."

In a speech of Senator George G. Vest, of Missouri, in the United States
Senate, January 25, 1887, these: "I now propose to read from a pamphlet
sent to me by a lady.... She says to her own sex: 'After all, men work
for women; or, if they think they do not, it would leave them but sorry
satisfaction to abandon them to such existence as they could arrange
without us.'

"Oh, how true that is, how true!"

In 1890 a bill was introduced in the New York Senate to lower the "age
of consent"--the age at which a girl may legally consent to sexual
intercourse--from 16 to 14. It failed. In 1892 the