what she can contrive to get.

The equality of married persons before the law, is not only the sole
mode in which that particular relation can be made consistent with
justice to both sides, and conducive to the happiness of both, but it
is the only means of rendering the daily life of mankind, in any high
sense, a school of moral cultivation. Though the truth may not be
felt or generally acknowledged for generations to come, the only
school of genuine moral sentiment is society between equals. The
moral education of mankind has hitherto emanated chiefly from the law
of force, and is adapted almost solely to the relations which force
creates. In the less advanced states of society, people hardly
recognise any relation with their equals. To be an equal is to be an
enemy. Society, from its highest place to its lowest, is one long
chain, or rather ladder, where every individual is either above or
below his nearest neighbour, and wherever he does not command he must
obey. Existing moralities, accordingly, are mainly fitted to a
relation of command and obedience. Yet command and obedience are but
unfortunate necessities of human life: society in equality is its
normal state. Already in modern life, and more and more as it
progressively improves, command and obedience become exceptional
facts in life, equal association its general rule. The morality of
the first ages rested on the obligation to submit to power; that of
the ages next following, on the right of the weak to the forbearance
and protection of the strong. How much longer is one form of society
and life to content itself with the morality made for another? We
have had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry and
generosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice.
Whenever, in former ages, any approach has been made to society in
equality, Justice has asserted its claims as the foundation of
virtue. It was thus in the free republics of antiquity. But even in
the best of these, the equals were limited to the free male citizens;
slaves, women, and the unenfranchised residents were under the law of
force. The joint influence of Roman civilization and of Christianity
obliterated these distinctions, and in theory (if only partially in
practice) declared the claims of the human being, as such, to be
paramount to those of sex, class, or social position. The barriers
which had begun to be levelled were raised again by the northern
conquests; and the