marriage and divorce;
others are latitudinarian on these questions. In short,
people of the most opposite views agree in desiring to
establish woman suffrage, while they anticipate very
different results from the reform, when effected.

The above is cited as evidence against us. How so? A man may hold
"latitudinarian theories in regard to marriage and divorce"
without "throwing scorn upon the marriage relation," or having
the slightest sympathy with free-love. For instance: The present
law of Vermont is latitudinarian is these very particulars. It
grants divorce for many other causes than adultery. Measured by
the more conservative standard of Henry Ward Beecher and Mary A.
Livermore, it allows divorce upon insufficient grounds. This law
represents the public sentiment of a majority of the people of
Vermont. Will the _Watchman_ assert that the people of Vermont
"throw scorn on the marriage relation"? Or that he is in "low
company" because he is surrounded by the citizens of a State who
entertain views upon the marriage relation less rigid than his
own? Our indignant protest against the injustice of the common
law, which subjects the person, property, earnings and children
of married women to the irresponsible control of their husbands,
is not a protest against marriage. It is a vindication of
marriage, against the barbarism of the law which degrades a
noble and life-long partnership of equals into a mercenary and
servile relation between superior and dependant.

The _Watchman_ assails prominent supporters of woman suffrage,
and misquotes and misrepresents them. Because Theodore Tilton is
unwilling "that men or women shall be compelled to live together
as husband and wife against the inward protest of their own
souls," therefore he is charged with advocating free-love. Is it
possible that the editor regards such a relation of protest and
disgust as consistent with the unity of Christian marriage? Is it
right that a pure and noble man, the tender husband of a happy
wife, the loving father of affectionate children, should be thus
causelessly traduced for showing that the essential fact of
marriage is in that unity of soul which is recognized and
affirmed by the outward form? When the _Watchman_ undertakes to
brand men