lunatic or slave, and in case of his death has a
life use in only one-third part of the real estate of which
he dies possessed, and no indefeasible title whatever in any
of his personal estate. As a consequence, a husband may
strip his wife, by mere voluntary disposition to strangers,
of all claim on his estate after his death, and thus add
beggary to widowhood.

I am sure this cannot seem right to any fair-minded man.
Neither is it strange that some of our countrywomen, stung
by the injustice of the law towards their sex, should be
demanding, as a mode of redress, a part in the making of the
laws which govern them. I am confident there is manhood
enough in our own sex to right this obvious wrong to which I
have alluded.

I therefore recommend that the law on this subject be so
recast that, in all marriages hereafter contracted, the wife
shall hold her property and all her earnings for personal
services not rendered to her husband or minor children, as a
sole and separate estate, with absolute power of disposition
in her own name, and that the surviving wife shall have, by
law, the same measure of estate in the property of the
deceased husband, as the surviving husband shall be allowed
to have in the property of his deceased wife. This will
reduce their property relations to a principle of equality,
and, in my judgment, is demanded by the most obvious
dictates of justice and equity. Those who are not satisfied
with this can make a different law for themselves by
ante-nuptial settlements.

I am not unmindful that the husband alone is liable in the
first instance for the support of the family; but this is
much more than neutralized by the fact that, in most cases,
the wife's whole life is spent in the toilsome and unpaid
service of the household, and that the whole drift of her
estate, in consequence of her more unselfish and generous
nature, is towards the husband's pockets, in spite of all
the guards of the law and every consideration of prudence.

Calling attention to this stirring appeal, the _Hartford Times_,
Democratic, used the following language: