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Now, I claim that the Marriage Union, as our laws now stand, rests on just this principle. The woman has no alternative of resort from any kind of abuse from her partner, but divorce or secession from the Marriage Union.

Now the weak States have rights as well as the strong ones, and it is the rights of the weak which the Government are especially bound to respect and defend, to prevent usurpation and its legitimate issue -- secession from the Union.

What we want of our Government is to prevent this usurpation, by protecting us equally with our partners, so that a divorce need not become a necessity.

By equality of rights, I do not mean that woman's rights and man's rights are one and the same. By no means; we do not want the man's rights, but simply our own, natural, womanly rights. There are man's rights and woman's rights. Both different, yet both equally inalienable. There must be a head in every firm; and the head in the Marriage Firm or Union is the man, as the Bible and nature both plainly teach.

We maintain that the senior partner, the man, has rights of the greatest importance, as regards the interests of the marriage firm, which should not only be respected and protected by our Government, but also enforced upon them as an obligation, if the senior is not self-moved to use his rights practically -- and one of these his rights, is a right to protect his own wife and children.

The junior partner also has rights of equal moment to the interests of the firm, and one of these is her right to be protected by her senior partner. Not protected in a prison, but in her own home, as mistress of her own house, and as a God appointed guardian of her infant children. The Government would then be protecting the Marriage Union, while it now practically ignores it.

To make this matter still plainer, suppose this government was under the control of the female instead of the male influence, and suppose our female government should enact laws which required the men when they entered the Marriage Union to alienate their right to hold their own property -- their right to hold their future earnings -- their right to their own homes -- their right to their own offspring, if they have any -- their right to their personal liberty -- and all these rights be passed over into the hands of their wives for safe keeping, and so long as they chose to be married men, all their claims on our womanly government for protection should be abrogated entirely by this marriage contract. Now, I ask, how many men would venture to get married under these laws? Would they not be tempted to ignore the marriage laws of our Woman Government altogether?

Now, gentlemen, we are sorry to own it, this is the very condition in which your Man Government places us. We, women, looking from this very stand-point of sad experience, are tempted to exclaim:

"Where is the manliness of our Man Government! "

Divorce, I say, then, is in itself an evil -- and is only employed as an evil to avoid a greater one, in many instances. Therefore, instead of being forced to choose the least of two evils, I would rather reject both evils, and choose a good thing -- that of being protected in my own dear home from unmerited, unreasonable abuse -- a restitution of my rights, instead of a continuance of this robbery, sanctioned by a divorce.

In short, we desire to live under such laws as will oblige our husbands to treat us with decent respect, so long as our good conduct merits it, and then will they be made to feel a decent regard for us as their companions and partners, whom the laws protect from their abuse.

CHAPTER XIII.
The Opinions which Caused this Family Rupture.

The question is often asked, "what are your religious opinions, Mrs. Packard, which have caused all this rupture in your once happy family?"

My first impulse prompts me to answer, pertly, it is no one's business what I think but my own, since it is to God alone I am accountable for my thoughts.

"Whether my thoughts are right or wrong, true or false, is no one's business but my own. It is my own God given right to superintend my own thoughts, and this right I shall never delegate to any other human being -- for God himself has authorized me to "judge ye not of your own selves what is right?"

Yes, I do, and shall judge for myself what is right for me to think, what is right for me to speak, and what is right for me to do -- and if I do wrong, I stand amenable to the laws of society and my country; for to human tribunals I submit all my actions, as just and proper matter for criticism and control.

But my thoughts, I shall never yield to any human tribunal or oligarchy, as a just and proper matter for arbitration or discipline. It is my opinion that the time has gone by for thoughts to be chained to any creeds or oligarchies; but on the contrary, these chains and restraints which have so long bound the human reason to human dictation, must be broken, for the reign of individual, spiritual freedom is about dawning upon our progressive world.