Library Collections: Document: Full Text

"True her slavish position has been somewhat modified by statute law, still she is not yet emancipated; for her position of 'nonentity' still excludes her from becoming in law a companion or partner of her husband."

"But why don't you emancipate married women? You have emancipated the negro slave, and we think our claim to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' is equal, at least, to that of the colored men."

"'Tis true, it ought to be done," my counsel replied, "but as men generally protect their wives, as public sentiment, and her social position both demand she should be, and as it is not generally known that married woman is a slave in law, there has been no special call for the agitation of this question. But your case demonstrates the fact that she ought to be emancipated, for since you insist upon the right to be a married woman, there is no possible way to protect even your personal liberty from this marital usurper so long as you claim a right to your individual conscience and opinions in religious matters. Certainly her present condition not only encourages divorce or disunion of the married pair, but it makes the laws of divorce an imperative necessity.

"Besides this is only substituting one evil to supplant another. It is not removing any evil. The great underlying cause of the evils of our social system as yet remains unremoved and unmolested by legislation. Until this relic of barbarism is expunged from the laws of our Christian government, and woman is allowed to be an individualized partner or companion of her husband in law, as she now is in society, there can be no legal remedy for the constantly increasing and momentous evils of our social system. So long as this legalized usurpation of human rights exists, these social evils must necessarily increase -- they cannot diminish under, the fostering influence of injustice."

From one more stand point allow me to portray married woman's legal disabilities for my readers' consideration.

Finding, as I had, that my property rights -- my rights of conscience and opinion -- and my personal liberty -- were at the mercy of my legal usurper, I inquired with the most intense anxiety how it was with my children. "Can I not have children protected to me while I am a married woman? "

"No! The children are all the husband's after the 'tender age.' Yon can have no legal right to your children without you get a divorce, and then the Judge will give you children and alimony."

"Then your laws do protect children to the single woman, while they do not protect them to the married woman?"

"Yes, the laws do respect the right of maternity in the single woman, but in the married woman this right, like all her other rights, is ignored by this suspension of rights during coverture."

Now, we married women claim that the time has fully come to have our natural rights, as women, established and protected by law, equally, at least, to those of the single woman, for by such laws as these the government is offering a premium on infidelity, and encourages divorce. Whereas, the best interests of society demand that the sacred institution of marriage be based on the principle of right and justice to both parties, so that neither party can ignore or usurp the inalienable rights of the other.

Until this is done, the children of this Republic have only half their rights, in law. They can claim a legal right to a father's training, but none to a mother's care!

Inasmuch as the law of manliness did not influence my husband to respect my rights, I had no tribunal whatever to appeal to, since this law did not recognize any separate interest or identity in the married woman.

The law of manliness is the only law the married woman has to depend upon for protection under the common law.

This I at once recognized as an all-sufficient refuge in most cases; for doubtless this law is based upon the almost universal fact that man will defend his own wife even before he would himself. Therefore, laws for the wife's protection seem almost to ignore this principle of manhood.

Yet, in such cases as my own, that is -- exceptional cases -- where the higher law is not a sufficient guarantee for the protection of the wife, there seems to be a necessity for the lower law of human enactments to enforce the dictates of he higher law. In such cases, and in these alone, there does seem to be a necessity for some laws to ensure the safety of the married woman.

But at that date the common law in Illinois had not been modified by statute law as it has since been. Thus Mr. Packard's course was sustained and is still sustained under common law, wherever it exists unmodified by statute law.

And it is hoped that this delineation of its injustice to married woman may have its influence in securing its modification still farther, where justice to woman requires it, so that no other married woman may be compelled to go without protection, for want of laws to shield her from marital injustice.