generally. Certainly there has been but little change in the
legal position of women since China was in its prime, until within the last
half century. Lawyers admit that the fundamental theory of English and
Oriental law is the same on this point: Man and wife are one, and that one
is the husband. It is the oldest of legal traditions. When Blackstone
declares that "the very being and existence of the woman is suspended
during the marriage," and American Kent echoes that "her legal existence
and authority are in a manner lost;" when Petersdorff asserts that "the
husband has the right of imposing such corporeal restraints as he may deem
necessary," and Bacon that "the husband hath, by law, power and dominion
over his wife, and may keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and may
beat her, but not in a violent or cruel manner;" when Mr. Justice Coleridge
rules that the husband, in certain cases, "has a right to confine his wife
in his own dwelling-house, and restrain her from liberty for an indefinite
time," and Baron Alderson sums it all up tersely, "The wife is only the
_servant_ of her husband,"--these high authorities simply reaffirm the
dogma of the Gentoo code, four thousand years old and more: "A man, both
day and night, must keep his wife so much in subjection that she by no
means be mistress of her own actions. If the wife have her own free will,
notwithstanding she be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss."

Yet behind these unchanging institutions, a pressure has been for centuries
becoming concentrated, which, now that it has begun to act, is threatening
to overthrow them all. It has not yet operated very visibly in the Old
World, where, even in England, the majority of women have not till lately
mastered the alphabet sufficiently to sign their own names in the marriage
register. But in this country the vast changes of the last few years are
already a matter of history. No trumpet has been sounded, no earthquake has
been felt, while State after State has ushered into legal existence one
half of the population within its borders. Surely, here and now, might poor
M. Marechal exclaim, the bitter fruits of the original seed appear. The sad
question recurs, Whether women ought ever to have tasted of the alphabet.

It is true that Eve ruined us all, according to theology, without knowing
her letters. Still there is something to be said in defence of that
venerable ancestress. The Veronese lady, Isotta Nogarola