[133] The Daily Saratogian. August 19th, said: Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, a medium-sized, lady-like looking woman, dressed in a tasty plum-colored silk with two flounces, made the first address upon some of the defects in the marriage laws, quoting Story, Kent, and Blackstone. She closed by speaking of Mrs. Marcet, an able writer on political economy, her book much used in schools. She referred to Miss Pinckney, of South Carolina, who in nullification times, wrote powerfully on that subject. It was said that party was consolidated by the nib of a lady's pen. She was the first woman in the United States who was honored with a public funeral.

[134] President.—Martha C. Wright, of Auburn.

Vice-Presidents.—Rev. Samuel J. May, Syracuse; Lydia Mott, Albany; Ernestine L. Rose, New York; Antoinette L. Brown, New York; Susan B. Anthony, Rochester; Augusta A. Wiggins, Saratoga Springs.

Secretaries.—Emily Jaques, Nassau; Aaron M. Powell, Ghent; Mary L. Booth, Williamsburgh.

Finance Committee.—Susan B. Anthony, Marietta Richmond, Mary S. Anthony, Phebe H. Jones.

Business Committee.—Antoinette L. Brown, Ernestine L. Rose, T. W. Higginson, Charles F. Hovey, of Boston; Phebe Merritt, of Michigan; Hon. William Hay, of Saratoga Springs.

[135] Now the successful editor of Harper's Bazar.

[136] This year Miss Anthony canvassed the State, holding conventions in fifty-four counties, organizing societies, getting signatures to petitions, and subscribers to The Una. At some of these meetings Mrs. Rose, Miss Brown, and Miss Filkins assisted by turn, but the chief part she carried through alone. She had posters for the entire State printed in Rochester, her father, brother Merritt, and Mary Luther folding and superscribing to all the postmasters and the sheriff of every county. The sheriffs, with but few exceptions, opened the Court Houses for the meetings, posted the bills, and attended to the advertising. Miss Anthony entered on this work without the pledge of a dollar. But with free meetings and collections in the afternoon, and a shilling admission in the evening, she managed to cover the entire expenses of the campaign.

[137] WOMEN'S RIGHTS PETITION.

To the Honorable, the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York:

WHEREAS, the women of the State of New York are recognized as citizens by the Constitution, and yet are disfranchised on account of sex; we do respectfully demand the right of suffrage; a right which involves all other rights of citizenship, and which can not be justly withheld, when we consider the admitted principles of popular government, among which are the following:

1st. That all men are born free and equal.

2d. That government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.

3d. That taxation and representation should go together.

4th. That those held amenable to laws should have a share in framing them.

We do, therefore, petition that you will take the necessary steps so to revise the Constitution of our State, as that all her citizens may enjoy equal political privileges.

[138] The committee were Susan B. Anthony, Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette L. Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martha C. Wright, Lydia Mott.

[139] At the close of this Convention, Charles F. Hovey, as was his usual custom, planned an excursion for those who had taken part in the meetings. He invited them to take a drive to the lake, a few miles out of Saratoga, gave them a bountiful repast, and together they spent a day rich in pleasant memories. Listening day after day to the wrongs perpetrated on woman by law and Gospel of man's creation, Mr. Hovey always seemed to feel that he was in duty bound to throw what sunshine and happiness he could into the lives of women, and thus in a measure atone for the injustice of his sex, and most royally he did this whenever an opportunity offered, not only while he lived, but by bequests at his death.

[140] Twenty years after this Mrs. Stanton met a lady in Texas, who told her about this Saratoga Convention. She said her attention was first called to the subject of woman's rights by some tracts a friend of hers, then living in Georgia, brought home at that time, and that we could form but little idea of the intense interest with which they were read and discussed by quite a circle of ladies, who plied her aunt with innumerable questions about the Convention and the appearance and manners of the ladies who led the movement.

[141] It is now over forty years that the various branches of the Hutchinson family have been singing the liberal ideas of their day on the anti-slavery, temperance, and Woman's Rights platforms, and they are singing still (1881) with the infusion of some new blood in the second and third generation. Only one year ago traveling in Kansas, on a dreary night train, with no sleeping car attached, I had worried through the weary hours until three o'clock in the morning, when the cars stopped at Fort Scott. I was slowly pacing up and down the aisle, when in came Asa Hutchinson, violin in hand, and a troop of boys and girls behind him. There we stood face to face, both well on the shady side of sixty-five, our locks as white as snow, each thinking the other was too old for such hard journeys, he still singing, I still preaching "equal rights to all." "Well," said I, "Asa, this is a very unchristian hour for you to be skylarking over the prairies of Kansas." "Ah!" said he, dolorously, "this is no skylarking; we sung last night until near eleven o'clock, shook hands, and talked until twelve; arose about two, waited an hour at a cold depot, and we all feel as cross as bears." "I can sympathize with you," I replied; "I spent the hours until twelve as you did, entertaining my countrymen and women, and have been trying to rest ever since." In talking over old times until the day dawned we forgot our fatigue, and as I left the cars they gave me a parting salute with the "good time coming." How well I remember the power of the young Hutchinsons in the old mob days; four brothers and one sister standing side by side on the platform in Faneuil Hall, Boston. So hated were the Abolitionists and their doctrines, that not even Wendell Phillips or Abby Kelly could get a hearing, but when the sweet singers from the old Granite State came forward silence reigned, to be broken, however, the moment the last notes of harmony died upon their lips. E. C. S.

[142] Saratoga, Niagara, and Trenton Falls; Clifton, Avon, Sharon, and Ballston Springs, Lake George, etc. In making the tour In 1859, Miss Brown and Miss Anthony had some recherche out-door meetings in the groves of Clifton and Trenton that were highly praised by the press and the people, and in the long summer days most charming to themselves.

[143] The speakers were Samuel J. May, Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette L. Brown, Carrie D. Filkins, Lydia A. Jenkins, Aaron M. Powell, Hon. Wm. Hay, Susan B. Anthony.

[144] If the intestate be a married man living, and having lived with his wife daring marriage, or if the intestate be a married woman living or having lived with her husband during marriage, and shall die without lawful descendants, born or to be born of such marriage, or a prior marriage, the inheritance shall descend to the surviving husband or wife, as the case may be, during his or her natural life, whether the inheritance came to the intestate on the part of the mother or father or otherwise.

[145] President.—Lucy Stone.

Vice-Presidents.—Lucretia Mott, of Pennsylvania; Elizabeth Jones, of Ohio; Rev. T. W. Higginson, of Massachusetts; Cornelia Moore, of New Jersey; A. Bronson Alcott, of New Hampshire; Sarah H. Hallock, of New York.

Secretaries.—Martha C. Wright, of New York; Oliver Johnson, of New York; Henrietta Johnson, of New Jersey.

Business Committee.—Ernestine L. Rose, Susan B. Anthony, Wendell Phillips, James Mott, Mariana Johnson, T. W. Higginson, William Green, Jr.

Treasurer.—Wendell Phillips.

Finance.—Susan B. Anthony.

[146] At the close of chapter on Indiana, p. 315.

[147] John C. Fremont's campaign.

[148] Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont.

[149] 1. Resolved, That the close of a Presidential election affords a peculiarly appropriate occasion to renew the demands of woman for a consistent application of Democratic principles.

2. Resolved, That the Republican Party, appealing constantly, through its orators, to female sympathy, and using for its most popular rallying cry a female name, is peculiarly pledged by consistency, to do justice hereafter in those States where it holds control.

3. Resolved, That the Democratic Party must be utterly false to its name and professed principles, or else must extend their application to both halves of the human race.

4. Resolved, That the present uncertain and inconsistent position of woman in our community, not fully recognized either as a slave or as an equal, taxed but not represented, authorized to earn property but not free to control it, permitted to prepare papers for scientific bodies but not to read them, urged to form political opinions but not allowed to vote upon them, all marks a transitional period in human history which can not long endure.

5. Resolved, That the main power of the woman's rights movement lies in this: that while always demanding for woman better education, better employment, and better laws, it has kept steadily in view the one cardinal demand for the right of suffrage; in a democracy the symbol and guarantee of all other rights.

6. Resolved, That the monopoly of the elective franchise, and thereby all the powers of legislative government by man, solely on the ground of sex, is a usurpation, condemned alike by reason and common-sense, subversive of all the principles of justice, oppressive and demoralizing in its operation, and insulting to the dignity of human nature.

7. Resolved, That while the constant progress of law, education, and industry prove that our efforts for women in these respects are not wasted, we yet proclaim ourselves unsatisfied, and are only encouraged to renewed efforts, until the whole be gained.

[150] During the struggle to extend slavery into that free State.

[151] Jeannette Brown Heath, daughter of Nathan Brown, of Montgomery County, New York. She traveled with Abby Kelly at one time as a companion. Jeannette was a famous horsewoman; the young ladies of the county thought themselves well off when they could purchase a steed that she had trained for the saddle. I remember many an escapade in my youth on a full-blooded black horse from Jeannette's equery, as I lived in her neighborhood; she is now residing with two sons and one daughter in Rochester, N. Y., enjoying the needed rest after such an eventful life.—E. C. S.

[152] She gave $100,000 to the Observatory in Albany.

[153] EXTRACTS FROM THE WILL OF THE LATE CHARLES F. HOVEY, ESQ.

ARTICLE 16. After setting aside sufficient funds to pay all legacies and bequests herein made, I direct my said Trustees to hold all the rest and residue of my estate, real, personal and mixed, in special trust for the following purposes, namely; to pay over, out of the Interest and principal of said special trust, a sum of not less than eight thousand dollars annually, until the same be all exhausted, to said Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Stephen S. Foster, Abby K. Foster, Parker Pillsbury, Henry C. Wright, Francis Jackson and Charles K. Whipple, and their survivors and survivor, for them to use and expend, at their discretion, without any responsibility to any one, for promotion of the Anti-Slavery cause and other reforms, such as Woman's Rights, Non-Resistance, Free Trade and Temperance, at their discretion; and I request said Wendell Phillips and his said associates to expend not less than eight thousand dollars annually, by the preparation and circulation of books, newspapers, employing agents, and the delivery of lectures that will, in their judgment, change public opinion, and secure the abolition of Slavery in the United States, and promote said other reforms. Believing that the chain upon four millions of slaves, with tyrants at one end and hypocrites at the other, has become the strongest bond of the Union of the States, I desire said Phillips and his associates to expend said bequest by employing such agents as believe and practice the doctrine, of "No union with slaveholders, religiously or politically"; and by circulating such publications as tend to destroy every pro-slavery institution.

ARTICLE 17. In case chattel slavery should be abolished in the United States before the expenditure of the said residue of my estate, as stated in said sixteenth article of this Will; then, in that case, I desire that the unexpended part of said residue be applied by said Phillips and his associates, in equal proportions, for the promotion of Non-Resistance, Woman's Rights and Free Trade; requesting that no agents be employed by them for the promotion of said causes, except such as believe it wrong to have any voluntary connection with any government of violence, and such as believe that the natural rights of men and women are equal. Whether slavery be abolished or not, I desire that a part of the said residue of my estate may be applied to the promotion of the kindred causes of Temperance, Woman's Rights, Non-Resistance and Free Trade, at the discretion of the said Phillips and his associates.

ARTICLE 22. I particularly request that no prayers be solicited from any person, and that no priest be invited to perform any ceremony whatever, over or after my body. The Priesthood are an order of men, as I believe, falsely assuming to be reverend and divine, pretending to be called of God; the great body of them in all countries have been on the side of power and oppression; the world has been too long cheated by them; the sooner they are unmasked, the better for humanity. As I have heretofore borne my testimony against slavery, intemperance, war, tariffs and all indirect taxation, banks and all monopolies, I desire to leave on record my abhorrence of them all. The fear of being buried before I am dead is slight, nevertheless it is greater than the fear of death itself. I therefore request my executors not to bury my body until at least three days after my decease. In witness whereof, I have hereto set my hand and seal, this twenty-eighth day of March, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine.

CHARLES F. HOVEY.

Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said Testator to be his last Will and Testament, in presence of us, who, at his request, and in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereto subscribed our names as witnesses.

GEORGE L. LOVETT. THOMAS MACK. WILLIAM W. HOWE.

I do prove, approve and allow the same, and order it to be recorded. Given under my hand and seal of office, the day and year above written.

ISAAC AMES, May 30, 1859. Judge of Probate and Insolvency.

[154] George William Curtis, Mrs. Eliza W. Farnham, Parker Pillsbury, Sarah Hallock, Mrs. Sidney Howard Gay, Sarah M. Grimke, Charles Lenox Remond, Lucy A. Coleman, Sarah P. Remond, and the Hutchinson family, consisting of Jessie, his wife, and two children, and Abby, who sung among many other sweet ballads, "The Good Time Coming."

[155] Frederick Douglas, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, Frances Dana Gage, Wendell Phillips, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, Susan B. Anthony, Caroline H. Dall, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown, Aaron M. Powell.

[156] Eliza Farnham was in many respects a remarkable woman. As matron of the Sing Sing prison at one time, she introduced many humane improvements in the occupation and discipline of the women under her charge. She had a piano in the corridor, and with sweet music touched the tender chords in their souls. Instead of tracts on hell-fire and an angry God, she read aloud to them from Dickens' most touching stories. In every way, assisted by Mariana Johnson and Georgiana Bruce, she treated them as women, and not as criminals.

[157] Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Caroline H. Dall, Caroline M. Severance, Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Thomas W. Higginson, Susan B. Anthony.

[158] Resolved, That while every newspaper in the land carries on its face the record of woman's dishonor, the women who seek to elevate their sex are bound to inquire into its causes and save from its paralysis.

Resolved, That while we have no daughters too tender and pure, no sons too innocent, to escape from the influence of such tragedies as those at North Adams and Washington, the true modesty of every mother, the true dignity of every wife, should forbid her to put aside the questions they involve.

Resolved, That the dishonor of single women proceeds in great measure from destitution, and the dishonor of married women as much from their own want of education and utter absence of purpose in life as from the inability of their husbands to inspire them with true respect and help them to true living: therefore,

Resolved, That it is our bounden duty to open, in every possible way, new vocations to women, to raise their wages by every advisable means, and to secure to them an education which shall be less a decoration to their persons than a tool to their hands.

Resolved, That while courts adjourn in honor of a man like Philip Barton Key, while the whole Bar of the District of Columbia pass resolutions in his honor, and vote to attend his funeral, as a mark of respect, while the public opinion of a whole community sustains a man who could not defend his murderous indignation by the witness of an unspotted life, it is our duty to rate public opinion as a corrupting power, and to bring up our children in the knowledge and sanction of a higher law.

[159] FORM OF PETITION.

To the Senate and Assembly of the Slate of New York:

The undersigned, citizens of ——, New York, respectfully ask that you will take measures to submit to the people an amendment of the Constitution, allowing women to vote and hold office. And that you will enact laws securing to married women the full and entire control of all property originally belonging to them, and of their earnings during marriage; and making the rights of the wife over the children the same as a husband enjoys, and the rights of a widow, as to her children, and as to the property left by her husband, the same that a husband has in the property and over the children of his deceased wife.

[160] Lydia Mott, in writing to a friend, says: "I have heard but one opinion about the merits of the address and the manner of its delivery, and the press is very complimentary. It was better that one like Mrs. Stanton should speak on the occasion than two, unless the other might have been Wendell Phillips. Mr. Mayo expressed himself thoroughly satisfied; the whole effect was grand. Even old Father Woolworth stood the whole time, and very often he would nod assent at certain points. The House was packed, but so still that not one word was lost. It was worth as much to our cause as our whole Convention, though we could not have spared either."

[161] AN ACT CONCERNING THE RIGHTS AND LIABILITIES OF HUSBAND AND WIFE.

Passed March 20, 1860.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

SECTION 1. The property, both real and personal, which any married woman now owns, as her sole and separate property; that which comes to her by descent, devise, bequest, gift, or grant; that which she acquires by her trade, business, labor, or services, carried on or performed on her sole or separate account; that which a woman married in this State owns at the time of her marriage, and the rents, issues, and proceeds of all such property, shall notwithstanding her marriage, be and remain her sole and separate property, and may be used, collected, and invested by her in her own name, and shall not be subject to the interference or control of her husband, or liable for his debts, except such debts as may have been contracted for the support of herself or her children, by her as his agent.

Sec. 2. A married woman may bargain, sell, assign, and transfer her separate personal property, and carry on any trade or business, and perform any labor or services on her sole and separate account, and the earnings of any married woman from her trade, business, labor, or services shall be her sole and separate property, and may be used or invested by her in her own name.

Sec. 3. Any married woman possessed of real estate as her separate property may bargain, sell, and convey such property, and enter into any contract in reference to the same; but no such conveyance or contract shall be valid without the assent, in writing, of her husband, except as hereinafter provided.

Sec. 4. In case any married woman possessed of separate real property, as aforesaid, may desire to sell or convey the same, or to make any contract in relation thereto, and shall be unable to procure the assent of her husband as in the preceding section provided, in consequence of his refusal, absence, insanity, or other disability, such married woman may apply to the County Court in the county where she shall at the time reside, for leave to make such sale, conveyance, or contract, without the assent of her husband.

Sec. 5. Such application may be made by petition, verified by her, and setting forth the grounds of such application. If the husband be a resident of the county and not under disability from insanity or other cause, a copy of said petition shall be served upon him, with a notice of the time when the same will be presented to the said court, at least ten days before such application. In all other cases, the County Court to which such application shall be made, shall, in its discretion, determine whether any notice shall be given, and if any, the mode and manner of giving it.

Sec. 6. If it shall satisfactorily appear to such court, upon application, that the husband of such applicant has willfully abandoned his said wife, and lives separate and apart from her, or that he is insane, or imprisoned as a convict in any state prison, or that he is an habitual drunkard, or that he is in any way disabled from making a contract, or that he refuses to give his consent without good cause therefor, then such court shall cause an order to be entered upon its records, authorizing such married woman to sell and convey her real estate, or contract in regard thereto without the assent of her husband, with the same effect as though such conveyance or contract had been made with his assent.

Sec. 7. Any married woman may, while married, sue and be sued in all matters having relation to her property, which may be her sole and separate property, or which may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, or the gift of any person except her husband, in the same manner as if she were sole. And any married woman may bring and maintain an action in her own name, for damages against any person or body corporate, for any injury to her person or character, the same as if she were sole; and the money received upon the settlement of any such action, or recovered upon a judgment, shall be her sole and separate property.

Sec. 8. No bargain or contract made by any married woman, in respect to her sole and separate property, or any property which may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, or gift of any person except her husband, and no bargain or contract entered into by any married woman in or about the carrying on of any trade or business under the statutes of this State, shall be binding upon her husband, or render him or his property in any way liable therefor.

Sec. 9. Every married woman is hereby constituted and declared to be the joint guardian of her children, with her husband, with equal powers, rights, and duties in regard to them, with the husband.

Sec. 10. At the decease of husband or wife, leaving no minor child or children, the survivor shall hold, possess, and enjoy a life estate in one-third of all the real estate of which the husband or wife died seized.

Sec. 11. At the decease of the husband or wife intestate, leaving minor child or children, the survivor shall hold, possess, and enjoy all the real estate of which the husband or wife died seized, and all the rents, issues, and profits thereof during the minority of the youngest child, and one-third thereof during his or her natural life.

[162] On the final passage of the bill the following Senators, as The Journal shows, voted in favor of the measure, viz: Senators Abell, Bell, Colvin, Conally, Fiero, Goss, Hillhouse, Kelly, Lapham, Sessions, Manierre, Montgomery, Munroe, P. P. Murphy, Truman, Prosser, Ramsey, Robertson, Rotch, Warner, Williams—21.

[163] President.—Martha Wright, of Auburn, New York.

Vice-Presidents.—Abby Hopper Gibbons, of New York; Asa Fairbanks, of Rhode Island; Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, of New Jersey; Thomas Garrett, of Delaware; Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts; Robert Purvis, of Pennsylvania; J. Elizabeth Jones, of Ohio; Giles B. Stebbins, of Michigan.

Secretaries.—Ellen Wright and Mary L. Booth.

Finance Committee.—Susan B. Anthony, Lucy N. Colman, and Marietta Richmond.

Business Committee.—Ernestine L. Rose, A. L. B. Blackwell, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, E. Cady Stanton, Mary Grew, and Wendell Phillips.

[164] In the Scotch Presbyterian Church at Johnstown, N. Y., there was great excitement at one time on the question of temperance, the pastor being a very active friend to that movement. The opposition were determined to get rid of him, and called a church meeting for that purpose. To the surprise of the leading men of the congregation, the women came in force, armed with ballots, to defeat their proposed measures. When the time came to vote, according to arrangement, my mother headed the line marching up to the altar, where stood the deacon, hat in hand, to receive the ballots. As soon as he saw the women coming, he retreated behind the railing in the altar, closing the little door after him, which the women deliberately opened, and soon filled the space, completely surrounding the inspector of election, and, whichever way he turned, the ballots were thrown into the hat; and, when all had voted, my mother put her hand into the hat and stirred them up with the men's votes, so that it would be impossible to separate them. The pastor, representing the interests of temperance, had a large majority for his retention. But the men declared the election void because of the illegal voting, and, barricading the women out, with closed doors, voted their own measures the next day. Rev. Jeremiah Wood presided on the occasion, and whilst the women were contending for their rights under the very shadow of the altar, he recited various Scriptural texts on woman's sphere, to which these rebellious ones paid not the slightest attention. One dignified Scotch matron, looking him steadily in the face, indignant, at the behavior of the men, said with sternness and emphasis: "I protest against such high-handed proceedings." The result of this outbreak, was a decree by the Judicature of the Church, "that the women of the congregation should have the right to vote in all business matters," which they have most judiciously done ever since. E. C. S.

[165] Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, J. Elizabeth Jones, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Lucy N. Colman, and Susan B. Anthony.

[166] Mrs. Roberts and her daughters in Niagara County.

[167] Resolved, That inasmuch as man, in the progress of his development, found that at each advancing step new wants demanded new rights, and naturally walked out of those places, customs, creeds, and laws that in any way crippled and trammeled his freedom of thought, word, or action, it is his duty to stand aside and leave to woman the same rights—to grow up into whatever the laws of her being demand.

Resolved, That inasmuch as on woman are imposed by her Creator the duties of self-support and self-defense, and by government the responsibilities of taxation and penalties of violated law, she should be protected in her natural, inalienable rights, and secured in all the privileges of citizenship.

Resolved, That we demand a full recognition of our equal rights, civil and political—no special legislation can satisfy us—the enjoyment of a right to-day is no security that it will be continued to-morrow, so long as it is granted to us by a privileged class, and not secured to us as a sacred right.

WHEREAS, the essence of republican liberty is the principle that no class shall depend for its rights on the mercy or justice of any other class, therefore,

Resolved, That woman demands her right to the jury-box and the ballot, that she may have, as man has, the means of her own protection in her own hands.

Resolved, That woman, in consenting to remain in any organization or church where she has no voice in the choice of officers, trustees, or pastor—no right of protest against false doctrines or action—is wanting in a proper self-respect, in that dignity which, as a philanthropist and a Christian, she should ever manifest.

Resolved, That we from this platform instruct our legal representatives to make no more appropriations to colleges for boys exclusively. Now that we are large property holders and tax-payers, we protest against the injustice of being compelled to build and endow colleges into which we are forbidden to enter.

Resolved, That we advise women to apply to the trustees and heads of public libraries, galleries of art, and similar institutions, for employment as clerks and attendants, thus securing to themselves, when admitted, a more liberal means of support, and furnishing a stepping-stone to other occupations.

Resolved, That we return thanks to the Legislature of New York for its acts of justice to woman during the last session. But the work is not yet done. We still claim the ballot, the right of trial by a jury of our own peers, the control and custody of our persons in marriage, and an equal right to the joint earnings of the co-partnership. The geographical position and political power of New York make her example supreme; hence we feel assured that when she is right on this question, our work is done.

[168] 1. Resolved, That, in the language (slightly varied) of John Milton, "Those who marry intend as little to conspire their own ruin, as those who swear allegiance, and as a whole people is to an ill government, so is one man or woman to an ill marriage. If a whole people, against any authority, covenant, or statute, may, by the sovereign edict of charity, save not only their lives, but honest liberties, from unworthy bondage, as well may a married party, against any private covenant, which he or she never entered, to his or her mischief, be redeemed from unsupportable disturbances, to honest peace and just contentment."

2. Resolved, That all men are created equal, and all women, in their natural rights, are the equals of men, and endowed by their Creator with the same inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.

3. Resolved, That any constitution, compact, or covenant between human beings, that failed to produce or promote human happiness, could not, in the nature of things, be of any force or authority; and it would be not only a right, but a duty, to abolish it.

4. Resolved, That though marriage be in itself divinely founded, and is fortified as an institution by innumerable analogies in the whole kingdom of universal nature, still, a true marriage is only known by its results; and, like the fountain, if pure, will reveal only pure manifestations. Nor need it ever be said, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder," for man could not put it asunder; nor can he any more unite what God and nature have not joined together.

5. Resolved, That of all insulting mockeries of heavenly truth and holy law, none can be greater than that physical impotency is cause sufficient for divorce, while no amount of mental or moral or spiritual imbecility is ever to be pleaded in support of such a demand.

6. Resolved, That such a law was worthy those dark periods when marriage was held by the greatest doctors and priests of the Church to be a work of the flesh only, and almost, if not altogether, a defilement; denied wholly to the clergy, and a second time, forbidden to all.

7. Resolved, That an unfortunate or ill-assorted marriage is ever a calamity, but not ever, perhaps never, a crime—and when society or government, by its laws or customs, compels its continuance, always to the grief of one of the parties, and the actual loss and damage of both, it usurps an authority never delegated to man, nor exercised by God himself.

8. Resolved, That observation and experience daily show how incompetent are men, as individuals, or as governments, to select partners in business, teachers for their children, ministers of their religion, or makers, adjudicators, or administrators of their laws; and as the same weakness and blindness must attend in the selection of matrimonial partners, the dictates of humanity and common sense alike show that the latter and most important contract should no more be perpetual than either or all of the former.

9. Resolved, That children born in these unhappy and unhallowed connections are, in the most solemn sense, of unlawful birth—the fruit of lust, but not of love—and so not of God, divinely descended, but from beneath, whence proceed all manner of evil and uncleanliness.

10. Resolved, That next to the calamity of such a birth to the child, is the misfortune of being trained in the atmosphere of a household where love is not the law, but where discord and bitterness abound; stamping their demoniac features on the moral nature, with all their odious peculiarities—thus continuing the race in a weakness and depravity that must be a sure precursor of its ruin, as a just penalty of long-violated law.

[169] Thurlow Weed, editor of The Albany Evening Journal, opposed the passage of the Divorce Bill before the New York Legislature in 1860.

[170] Resolved, That marriage is the voluntary alliance of two persons of opposite sexes into one family, and that such an alliance, with its possible incidents of children, its common interests, etc., must be, from the nature of things, as permanent as the life of the parties.

Resolved, That if human law attempts to regulate marriage at all, it should aim to regulate it according to the fundamental principles of marriage; and that as the institution is inherently as continuous as the life of the parties, so all laws should look to its control and preservation as such.

Resolved, That as a parent can never annul his obligations towards even a profligate child, because of the inseparable relationship of the parties, so the married partner can not annul his obligations towards the other, while both live, no matter how profligate that other's conduct may be, because of their still closer and alike permanent relationship; and, therefore, that all divorce is naturally and morally impossible, even though we should succeed in annulling all legalities.

Resolved, That gross fraud and want of good faith in one of the parties contracting this alliance, such as would invalidate any other voluntary relation, are the only causes which can invalidate this, and this, too, solely upon the ground that the relation never virtually existed, and that there are, therefore, no resulting moral obligations.

Resolved, however, That both men and women have a first and inviolable right to themselves, physically, mentally, and morally, and that it can never be the duty of either to surrender his personal freedom in any direction to his own hurt.

Resolved, That the great duty of every human being is to secure his own highest moral development, and that he can not owe to society, or to an individual, any obligation which shall be degrading to himself.

Resolved, That self-devotion to the good of another, and especially to the good of the sinful and guilty, like all disinterestedness, must redound to the highest good of its author, and that the husband or wife who thus seeks the best interests of the other, is obedient to the highest law of benevolence.

Resolved, That this is a very different thing from the culpable weakness which allows itself to be immolated by the selfishness of another, to the hurt of both; and that the miserable practice, now so common among wives, of allowing themselves, their children and family interests, to be sacrificed to a degraded husband and father, is most reprehensible.

Resolved, That human law is imperatively obligated to give either party ample protection to himself, to their offspring, and to all other family interests, against wrong, injustice, and usurpation on the part of the other, and that, if it be necessary to this, it should grant a legal separation; and yet, that even such separation can not invalidate any real marriage obligation.

Resolved, That every married person is imperatively obligated to do his utmost thus to protect himself and all family interests against injustice and wrong, let it arise from what source it may.

Resolved, That every woman is morally obligated to maintain her equality in human rights in all her relations in life, and that if she consents to her own subjugation, either in the family, Church or State, she is as guilty as the slave is in consenting to be a slave.

Resolved, That a perfect union can not be expected to exist until we first have perfect units, and that every marriage of finite beings must be gradually perfected through the growth and assimilation of the parties.

Resolved, That the permanence and indissolubility of marriage tend more directly than anything else toward this result.

[171] Francis Jackson. This fund was drawn upon by several of the States. $1,993.66 was expended in the campaigns in New York, the publication of 60,000 tracts, and the appropriation of several hundred to a series of sermons by the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, delivered in Hope Chapel, New York; $1,000 was expended in the Ohio canvass of 1860, and tracts in large numbers were also sent there. Both money and tracts were contributed to the Kansas campaign of 1859. Lucy Stone had $1,500 to expend in Kansas in 1867, and thus in various ways the fund was finally expended, Lucy Stone drawing out the last $1,000 in 1871. So careful had been the management of this fund, that the accumulation of the interest had greatly increased the original sum.

[172] Lydia Mott was one of the quiet workers who kept all things pertaining to the woman's rights reform in motion at the capital. Living in Albany, she planned conventions and hearings before the Legislature. She knew a large number of the members and men of influence, who all felt a profound respect for that dignified, judicious Quaker woman. Her home was not only one of the depots of the underground railroad, where slaves escaping to Canada were warmed and fed, but it was the hospitable resort for all reformers. Everything about the house was clean and orderly, and the table always bountiful, and the food appetizing. As such men as Seward and Marcy, leaders from opposite political parties, Gerrit Smith, Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, Remond, Foster, Douglass, representing all the reforms, met in turn at Miss Mott's dinner-table, she had the advantage of hearing popular questions discussed from every standpoint. And Miss Mott was not merely hostess at her table, but on all occasions took a leading part in the conversation. All of us who enjoyed her friendship and hospitality deeply feel her loss in that conservative city.

[173] [Introduced, on notice, by Mr. Ramsey; read twice, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary; reported from said Committee for the consideration of the Senate, and committed to the Committee of the Whole].

AN ACT IN REGARD TO DIVORCES DISSOLVING THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

SECTION 1. In addition to the cases in which a divorce, dissolving the marriage contract, may now be decreed by the Supreme Court, such a divorce may be decreed by said court in either of the cases following:

1. Where either party to the marriage shall, for the period of three years next preceding the application for such divorce, have willfully deserted the other party to the marriage, and neglected to perform to such party the duties imposed by their relation.

2. Where there is and shall have been for the period of one year next preceding the application for such divorce, continuous and repeated instances of cruel and inhuman treatment by either party, so as greatly to impair the health or endanger the life of the other party, thereby rendering it unsafe to live with the party guilty of such cruelty or inhumanity.

Sec.2. The foregoing sections shall not apply to any person who shall not have been an actual resident of this State for the period of five years next preceding such application for such divorce.

Sec.3. Specifications one, two, and three of original section thirty-eight, of article three, of title one, of chapter eight, of part two of the Revised Statutes, shall apply to these causes for divorce as they now apply to the cause of adultery.

Sec.4. The other provisions of the Revised Statutes relating to the granting of divorces for adultery, and regulating the form and manner of proceedings and decrees, and the effects thereof, and the restrictions and defences to the application thereof, shall be applicable to the granting of divorces for causes hereinabove specified, and all proceedings therefor and therein, so far and in such manner as the same may be capable of such application.

Sec.5. This act shall take effect immediately.

[174] Published at the close of Mr. Greeley's "Recollections of a Busy Life."

[175] Passed April 10, 1862.

SECT. 3. Any married woman, possessed of real estate as her separate property, may bargain, sell, and convey such property, and enter into any contract in reference to the same, with the like effect in all respects as if she were unmarried; and she may in like manner enter into such covenant or covenants for title as are usual in conveyances of real estate, which covenants shall be obligatory to bind her separate property, in case the same or any of them be broken.

Sec.2. The fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh sections of the said Act are hereby repealed.

7th. Any married woman may, while married, sue and be sued, in all matters having relation to her sole and separate property, or which may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, purchase, or the gift or grant of any person, in the same manner as if she were sole; and any married woman may bring and maintain an action in her own name, for damages, against any person or body corporate, for any injury to her person or character, the same as if she were sole; and the money received upon the settlement of any such action, or recovered upon a judgment, shall be her sole and separate property. In case it shall be necessary in the prosecution or defense of any action brought by or against a married woman, to enter into any bond or undertaking, such bond or undertaking may be executed by such married woman, with the same effect in all respects as if she were sole; and in case the said bond or undertaking shall become broken or forfeited, the same may be enforced against her separate estate.

8th. No bargain or contract made by any married woman, in respect to her sole and separate property, or any property which may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, purchase, or the gift or grant of any person (except her husband), and no bargain or contract entered into by any married woman, in or about the carrying on of any trade or business, under any statute of this State, shall be binding upon her husband, or render him or his property in any way liable therefor.

5th. In an action brought or defended by any married woman in her name, her husband shall not, neither shall his property, be liable for the costs thereof, or the recovery therein. In an action brought by her for an injury to her person, character, or property, if judgment shall pass against her for costs, the court in which the action is pending shall have jurisdiction to enforce payment of such judgment out of her separate estate, though the sum recovered be less than one hundred dollars.

6th. No man shall bind his child to apprenticeship or service, or part with the control of such child or create any testamentary guardian therefor, unless the mother, if living, shall in writing signify her assent thereto.

7th. A married woman may be sued in any of the courts of this State, and whenever a judgment shall be recovered against a married woman, the same may be enforced by execution against her sole and separate estate in the same manner as if she were sole.

[176] THE GUARDIANSHIP LAW, PASSED APRIL 25, 1871.

6th. The Surrogate, to whom application may be made under either of the preceding sections, shall have the same power to allow and appoint guardians as is possessed by the Supreme Court, and may appoint a guardian for a minor whose father is living, upon personal service of notice of the application for such appointment upon such father, at least ten days prior thereto; and in all cases the Surrogate shall inquire into the circumstances of the minor and ascertain the amount of his personal property, and the value of the rents and profits of his real estate, and for that purpose may compel any person to appear before him and testify in relation thereto.

[177] See law of 1860.



CHAPTER XV.

WOMAN, CHURCH, AND STATE.

BY MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.

Woman under old religions—Woman took part in offices of early Christian Church Councils—Original sin—Celibacy of the clergy—Their degrading sensuality—Feudalism—Marriage—Debasing externals and debasing ideas—Witchcraft—Three striking points for consideration—Burning of Witches—Witchcraft in New England—Marriage with devils—Woman's Right of property not recognized—Wife ownership—Women legislated for as slaves—Marriage under the Greek Church—The Salic law—Cromwellian era—The Reformation—Woman under monastic rules in the Protestant home—Polygamy taught by Luther and other Protestant Divines—The Mormon doctrine regarding woman its logical result—Milton responsible for many existing views in regard to woman—Woman's subordination taught to-day—The See trial—Right Rev. Dr. Cox—Rev. Knox-Little—Pan-Presbyterians— Quakers not as liberal as they have been considered—Restrictive action of the Methodist Church—Offensive debate upon ordaining Miss Oliver—The Episcopal Church and its restrictions—Sunday-school teachings—Week-day-school teachings—Sermon upon woman's subordination by the President of a Baptist Theological Seminary—Professor Christlieb of Germany—"Dear, will you bring me my shawl?"—Female sex looked upon as a degradation—A sacrilegious child—Secretary Evarts, in the Beecher-Tilton trial, upon woman's subordination—Women degraded in science and literature—Large-hearted men upon woman's degradation—Wives still sold in the market-place as "mares," led by a halter around their necks—Degrading servile labor performed by woman in Christian countries—A lower degradation—"Queen's women"—"Government women"—Interpolations in the Bible—Letter from Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D—What is Truth?

Woman is told that her present position in society is entirely due to Christianity, and this assertion is then made the basis of opposition to her demands for exact equality with man in all the relations of life. Knowing that the position of every human being keeps pace with the religion and civilization of his country, and that in many ancient nations woman had secured a good degree of respect and power, as compared even with that she has in the present era, it has been decided to present this subject from a historical standpoint, and to show woman's position under the Christian Church for the last 1,500 years.

If in so doing we shall help to show man's unwarranted usurpation over woman's religious and civil rights, and the very great difference between true religion and theology, this chapter will not have been written in vain, as it will prove that the most grievous wound ever inflicted upon woman has been in the teaching that she was not created equal with man, and the consequent denial of her rightful place and position in Church and State.

Woman had acquired great liberty under the old civilizations. In Rome she had not only secured remarkable personal and property rights,[178] but she officiated as priestess in the most holy offices of religion. Not only as Vestal Virgin did she guard the Sacred Fire, upon whose preservation the welfare of Rome was held to depend, but at the end of every consular period women officiated in private worship and sacrifice to the Bono Dea, with mystic ceremonies which no man's presence was suffered to profane. The Eleusinian mysteries were attributed to Ceres herself, and but few men had the courage to dare initiation into their most secret rites. In ancient Egypt, woman bought and sold in the markets, was physician, colleges for her instruction in medicine existing 1,200 years before Christ; she founded its literature, the "Sacred Songs" of Isis being deemed by Plato literally 10,000 years old; as priestess she performed the most holy offices of religion, holding the Sacred Sistrum and offering sacrifices to the gods; she sat upon its throne and directed the civilization of this country at the most brilliant period of its history; while in the marriage relation she held more than equality; the husband at the ceremony promising obedience to the wife in all things, a rule which according to Wilkinson, wrought no harm, but, on the contrary, was productive of lasting fidelity and regard, the husband and wife sitting together upon the same double chair in life, and lying together in the same tomb after death. Crimes against women were rare in olden Egypt, and were punished in the most severe manner. In Persia, woman was one of the founders of the ancient Parsee religion, which taught the existence of but a single God, thus introducing monotheism into that rare old kingdom. The Germans endowed their wives upon marriage with a horse, bridle, and spear, emblematic of equality, and they held themselves bound to chastity in the marital relation. The women of Scandinavia were regarded with respect, and marriage was held as sacred by both men and women. These old Berserkers reverenced their Alruna, or Holy Women, on earth, and worshiped goddesses in heaven.

All Pagandom recognized a female priesthood, some making their national safety to depend upon them, like Rome; sybils wrote the Books of Fate, and oracles where women presided were consulted by many nations. The proof of woman's also taking part in the offices of the Christian Church at an early date is to be found in the very restrictions which were at a later period placed upon her. The Council of Laodicea, A.D. 365, in its eleventh canon[179] forbade the ordination of women to the ministry, and by its forty-fourth canon prohibited them from entering into the altar.

The Council of Orleans, A.D. 511, consisting of twenty-six bishops and priests, promulgated a canon declaring that on account of their frailty, women must be excluded from the deaconship.

Nearly five hundred years later than the Council of Laodicea, we find the Council of Paris (A.D. 824) bitterly complaining that women serve at the altar, and even give to the people the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, only eight years previously, had forbidden abbesses from taking upon themselves any priestly function. Through these canons we have the negative proof that for many hundred years women preached, baptized,[180] administered the sacrament, and filled various offices of the Church, and that men took it upon themselves to forbid them from such functions through prohibitory canons.

A curious old black-letter volume published in London in 1632, entitled "The Lawes and Resolutions of Women's Rights," says, "the reason why women have no control in Parliament, why they make no laws, consent to none, abrogate none, is their Original Sin."

This doctrine of her original sin lies at the base of the religious and political disqualifications of woman. Christianity, through this doctrine, has been interpreted as sustaining man's rights alone. The offices held by her during the apostolic age, she has been gradually deprived of through ecclesiastical enactments. To Augustine, whose early life was spent in company with the most degraded of woman-kind, is Christianity indebted for the full development of the doctrine of Original Sin, which, although to be found in the religious systems of several ancient nations, was not a primitive one of the Christian Church.[181] Taught as one of the most sacred mysteries of religion, which to doubt or to question was to hazard eternal damnation, it at once exerted a most powerful and repressing influence upon woman, fastening upon her a bondage which the civilization of the nineteenth century has not been able to cast off.

To this doctrine of woman's created inferiority we can trace those irregularities which for many centuries filled the Church with shame, for practices more obscene than the orgies of Babylon or Corinth, and which dragged Christendom to a darkness blacker than the night of heathendom in pagan countries—a darkness upon which the most searching efforts of historians cast scarcely one ray of light—a darkness so profound that from the seventh to the eleventh century no individual thought can be traced. All was sunk in superstition; men were bound by Church dogmas, and looked only to aggrandizement through her. The priesthood, which alone possessed a knowledge of letters, prostituted their learning to the basest uses; the nobility spent their lives in warring upon each other; the peasantry were the sport and victim by turns of priest and noble, while woman was the prey of all; her person and her rights possessing no consideration only as they could be made to advance the interest or serve the pleasure of noble, husband, father, or priest—some man-god to whose lightest desire all her wishes were made to bend. The most pronounced doctrine of the Church during this period was, that through woman sin had been introduced into the world; that woman's whole tendency was toward evil, and that had it not been for the unfortunate oversight of her creation, man would be dwelling in the paradisical innocence and happiness of Eden blessed with immortality. The Church looking upon woman as under a curse, considered man as God's divinely appointed agent for its enforcement, and that the restrictions she suffered under Christianity were but parts of a just punishment for having caused the fall of man. Christian theology thus at once struck a blow at these old beliefs in woman's equality, broadly inculcating the doctrine that woman was created for man, was subordinate to him and under obedience to him. It bade woman stand aside from sacerdotal offices, forbidding her to speak in the church, commanding her to ask her husband at home for all she wished to know, at once repressing all tendency toward her freedom among those who adopted the new religion, and by various decretals taught her defilement through the physical peculiarities of her being. It placed the legality of marriage under priestly control, secured to husbands a right of divorce for causes not freeing the wife, and so far set its ban upon this relation as to hold single women above the wife and mother in holiness. After having forbidden woman the priestly office, it forbade her certain benefits to be derived therefrom, thus unjustly punishing her for an ineligibility of its own creation; offices in the Church, learning, and property rights, freedom of thought and action, all were held as improper for a being secondary to man, who came into the world, not as part of the great original plan, but as an afterthought of the Creator.

While it took many hundred years to totally exclude woman from the priesthood, the strict celibacy of the male clergy was during the same period the constant effort of the Church. At first its restrictions were confined to a single marriage with a woman who had never before entered that relation. A Council of A.D. 347, consisting of twenty-one bishops, forbade the ordination of those priests who had been twice married, or who had married a widow. A Council of A.D. 395, ruled that a bishop who had children after ordination, should be excluded from the major orders. The Council of A.D. 444, deposed Chelidonius, Bishop of Besancon, for having married a widow; while the Council of Orleans, A.D. 511, consisting of thirty-two bishops, decided that any monk who married should be expelled from the ecclesiastical order.

In the sixth century a Council was held at Macon (585), consisting of forty-three bishops with sees, sixteen bishops without sees, and fifteen envoys. At this Council the celebrated discussion took place of which it has often been said, the question was whether woman had a soul. It arose in this wise. A certain bishop insisted that woman should not be called "homo"; but the contrary was argued by others from the two facts that the Scriptures say that God created man, male and female, and that Jesus Christ, son of a woman, is called the son of man. Woman was, therefore, allowed to remain a human being in the eyes of the clergy, even though considered a very weak and bad one.

The Church held two entirely opposing views of marriage. Inasmuch as it taught that the fall came through marriage, this relation was regarded by many priests with holy horror as a continuance of the evil which first brought sin into the world. It was declared that God would have found some method of populating the world outside of marriage, and that condition was looked upon as one of peculiar temptation and trial. Another class taught its necessity, though in it woman was under complete subordination to man. These views can be traced to the early fathers; through clerical contempt of marriage, the conditions of celibacy and virginity were regarded as those of highest virtue. Jerome respected marriage as chiefly valuable in that it gave virgins to the Church, while Augustine, although he admitted the possibility of salvation to the married, yet spoke of a mother and daughter in heaven, the mother shining as a dim star, the daughter as one of the first magnitude.

In the "Apostolic Constitutions," held by the Episcopal Church as regulations established by the apostles themselves, and which are believed by many to be among the earliest Christian records, there are elaborate directions for the places of all who attend church, the unmarried being most honored. The virgins and widows and elder women stood, or sat first of all. The Emperor Honorius banished Jovinius for asserting the possibility of a man being saved who lived with his wife, even though he obeyed all the ordinances of the Church and lived a good life.

St. Chrysostom, whose prayer is repeated at every Sunday morning service of the Episcopal church, described woman as "a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill." The doctrine of priestly celibacy which was early taught, though not thoroughly enforced until the eleventh century, and the general tenor of the Church against marriage, together with its teaching woman's greater sinfulness, were the great causes of undermining the morals of the Christian world for fifteen hundred years. With these doctrines was also taught the duty of woman to sacrifice herself in every way to man. The loss of chastity in a woman was held as a light sin in comparison to the degradation that marriage would bring upon the priesthood, and young girls ruined by some candidate or priest, considered themselves as doing God service by refusing a marriage that would cause the expulsion of their lovers from this order. With woman's so-called divine self-sacrifice, Heloise chose to remain Abelard's mistress rather than destroy his prospects of advancement in the Church.[182]

To the more strict enforcement of priestly celibacy, the barons were permitted to make slaves of the wives and children of married priests. While by common law children were held as following the condition of their fathers, under Church legislation they were held to follow the condition of their mothers. Serf mothers have thus borne serf children to free-born fathers, and slave mothers have borne slave children to their masters; while unmarried mothers still bear bastard children to unknown fathers, the Church thus throwing the taint of illegitimacy upon the innocent. The relations of man and woman to each other, the sinfulness of marriage, and the license of illicit relations employed most of the thought of the Church.[183] The duty of woman to obey, not only her husband, but all men by virtue of their sex, was sedulously inculcated. She was trained to hold her own desires and even her own thoughts in complete abeyance to those of man; father, husband, brother, son, priest, alike held themselves as her rightful masters, and every holy principle of her nature was subverted in this most degrading assumption. A great many important effects followed the full establishment of priestly celibacy. The doctrine of woman's inherent wickedness took new strength; a formal prohibition of the Scriptures to the laity was promulgated from Toulouse in the twelfth century; the canon law gained control of the civil law; the absolute sinfulness of divorce, which had been maintained in councils, yet allowed by the civil law, was established; the Inquisition arose; the persecution of woman for witchcraft took on a new phase, and a tendency to suicide was developed. The wives of priests rendered homeless, and with their children suddenly ranked among the vilest of the earth, were powerless and despairing, and not a few of them shortened their agony by death at their own hands. For all these crimes the Church was directly responsible.

Priestly celibacy did not cause priestly purity of life,[184] but looking upon themselves as especially sanctified and set apart by virtue of that celibacy, priests made their holy office the cover of the most degrading sensuality.[185] Methods were taken to debauch the minds of women as well as their bodies. As late as the seventeenth century it was taught that a priest could commit no sin. This was an old doctrine, but received new strength from the Illumines. It was said that "The devout, having offered up and annihilated their own selves, exist no longer but in God. Thenceforth they can do no wrong. The better part of them is so divine that it no longer knows what the other is doing." The doctrine of some Protestant sects, "Once in grace, always in grace," is of the same character. The very incarnation was used as a means of weakening woman's virtue. An enforcement of the duty of an utter surrender of the soul and the will was taught by the example of the Virgin, "who obeyed the angel Gabriel and conceived, without risk of evil, for impurity could not come of a spirit."[186] Another lesson, of which the present century has some glimpse, was "that sin could be killed by sin, as the better way of becoming innocent again." The result of this doctrine was seen in the mistresses of the priests, known as "The Hallowed Ones."

Under such religious teaching as to woman, naught could be expected but that the laity would closely imitate the priesthood. Although Church and State may not be legally united, it is impossible for any religious opinion to become widely prevalent without its influencing legislation. Among the Anglo-Saxons, the priesthood possessed great influence; but after the Norman Conquest, ecclesiasticism gained greater control in England. Previous to this, a man was compelled by law to leave his wife one-third of his property, and could leave her as much, more as he pleased. Under ecclesiastical law he was not permitted to will her more than one-third, and could leave her as much less as he pleased. Glanville laid it down as a law of the kingdom that no one was compelled to leave another person any portion of his property, and that the part usually devised to wives was left them at the dictate of affection and not of law.

Women were not permitted to testify in court unless on some question especially concerning themselves. It is but twenty years since this law was annulled in Scotland, and but three years since, that by the influence of Signor Morelli,[187] the Parliament of Italy repealed the old restriction upon woman's testimony.

Sisters were not allowed to inherit with brothers, the property, according to old ecclesiastical language, going "to the worthiest of blood." Blackstone acknowledges that this distinction between brothers and sisters reflects shame upon England, and was no part of the old Roman law, where the children of a family inherited equally without distinction of sex. It is but two years since the old law of inheritance of sons alone was repealed in one of the Swiss Cantons. Even in this enlightened age its repeal met much opposition, men piteously complaining that they would be ruined by this act of justice done their sisters.

The minds of people having been corrupted through centuries by Church doctrines regarding woman, it was an easy step for the State to aid in her degradation. The system of Feudalism rising from the theory of warfare as the normal condition of man, still further oppressed woman by bringing into power a class of men accustomed to deeds of violence, and finding their chief pleasure in the sufferings of others. To be a woman, appealed to no instinct of tenderness in this class. To be a woman was not to be protected even, unless she held power in her own right, or was acting in place of some feudal lord. The whole body of villeins and serfs were under absolute dominion of the Feudal Lords. They were held as possessing no rights of their own: the Priest had control of their souls, the Lord of their bodies. But it was not upon the male serfs that the greatest oppression fell.

Although the tillage of the soil, the care of swine and cattle was theirs, the masters claiming the half or more of everything even to one-half the wool shorn from the flock,[188] and all exactions upon them were great while their sense of security was slight, it was upon their wives and daughters that the greatest outrages were inflicted. It was a pastime of the castle retainers to fall upon peaceful villages to the consternation of its women, who were struck, tortured, were great, while their sense of security was slight, it was upon and made the sport of the ribald soldiery, "Serfs of the Body," they had no protection. The vilest outrages were perpetrated by the Feudal Lords under the name of Rights. Women were taught by Church and State alike, that the Feudal Lord or Seigneur had a right to them, not only as against themselves, but as against any claim of husband or father. The law known as Marchetta, or Marquette, compelled newly-married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the Feudal Lord from one to three days after their marriage, and from this custom, the oldest son of the serf was held as the son of the lord, "as perchance it was he who begat him." From this nefarious degradation of woman, the custom of Borough-English arose, in which the youngest son became the heir. The original signification of the word borough being to make secure, the peasant through Borough-English made secure the right of his own son to what inheritance he might leave, thus cutting off the claim of the possible son of his hated lord. France, Germany, Prussia, England, Scotland, and all Christian countries where feudalism existed, held to the enforcement of Marquette. The lord deemed this right as fully his as he did the claim to half the crops of the land, or to the half of the wool sheared from the sheep. More than one reign of terror arose in France from the enforcement of this law, and the uprisings of the peasantry over Europe during the twelfth century, and the fierce Jacquerie, or Peasant War, of the fourteenth century in France owed their origin, among other causes, to the enforcement of these claims by the lords upon the newly-married wife. The Edicts of Marly securing the Seigneural Tenure in Lower Canada, transplanted that claim to America when Canada was under the control of France.

To persons not conversant with the history of feudalism, and of the Church for the first fifteen hundred years of its existence, it will seem impossible that such foulness could ever have been part of Christian civilization. That the crimes they have been trained to consider the worst forms of heathendom could have existed in Christian Europe, upheld by both Church and State for more than a thousand five hundred years, will strike most people with incredulity. Such, however, is the truth; we can but admit well-attested facts of history how severe a blow soever they strike our preconceived beliefs.

Marquette was claimed by the Lords Spiritual[189] as well as by the Lords Temporal. The Church, indeed, was the bulwark of this base feudal claim. With the power of penance and excommunication in its grasp, this feudal demand could neither have originated nor been sustained unless sanctioned by the Church.

In Scotland, Margaret, wife of Malcolm Conmore, generally known, from her goodness, as St. Margaret,[190] exerted her royal influence in 1057, against this degradation of her sex, but despite the royal prohibition and the substitution of the payment of a merk in money instead, the custom had such a foothold and appealed so strongly to man's licentious appetite it still continued, remaining in existence nearly seven hundred years after the royal edict against its practice. These customs of feudalism were the customs of Christianity during many centuries.[191] These infamous outrages upon woman were enforced under Christian law by both Church and State.[192]

The degradation of the husband at this infringement of the lord spiritual and temporal upon his marital right, has been pictured by many writers, but history has been quite silent upon the despair and shame of the wife. No hope appeared for woman anywhere. The Church, which should have been the great conserver of morals, dragged her to the lowest depths, through the vileness of its priestly customs. The State, which should have defended her civil rights, followed the example of the Church in crushing her to the earth. God Himself seemed to have forsaken woman. Freedom for the peasants was found alone at night. Known as the Birds of the Night, Foxes and Birds of Prey, it was only at these night assemblages they enjoyed the least happiness or security. Here, with wives and daughters, they met together to talk, of their gross outrages. Out of these foul wrongs grew the sacrifice of the "Black Mass," with woman as officiating priestess, in which the rites of the Church were travestied in solemn mockery, and defiance cast at that heaven which seemed to permit the priest and lord alike to trample upon all the sacred rights of womanhood in the names of religion and law.

During this mocking service a true sacrifice of wheat was offered to the Spirit of the Earth who made wheat to grow, and loosened birds bore aloft to the God of Freedom the sighs and prayers of the serfs asking that their descendants might be free. We can not do otherwise than regard this sacrifice as the most acceptable offering made in that day of moral degradation, a sacrifice and prayer more holy than all the ceremonials of the Church. This service, where woman, by virtue of her greater despair, acted both as altar and priest, opened by the following address and prayer: "I will come before Thine altar, but save me, O Lord, from the faithless and violent man!" (from the priest and the baron).[193] From these assemblages, known as "Sabbat," or "the Sabbath," from the old Pagan Midsummer-day sacrifice to "Bacchus Sabiesa," rose the belief in the "Witches' Sabbath," which for several hundred years formed a new source of accusation against women, and sent tens of thousands of them to the most horrible death.

Not until canon or Church law had become quite engrafted upon the civil law, did the full persecutions for witchcraft arise. A witch was held to be a woman who had deliberately sold her soul to the Evil One, who delighted in injuring others, and who chose the Sabbath day for the enactment of her impious rites, and who was especially connected with black animals; the black cat being held as her familiar in many countries.

In looking at the history of witchcraft, we see three striking points for consideration:

First. That women were chiefly accused, a wizard being seldom mentioned.

Second. That man, believing in woman's inherent wickedness, and understanding neither the mental nor the physical peculiarities of her being, ascribed all her idiosyncrasies to witchcraft.

Third. That the clergy inculcated the idea that woman was in league with the devil, and that strong intellect, remarkable beauty, or unusual sickness, were in themselves a proof of that league.

Catholic and Protestant countries alike agreed in holding woman as the chief accessory of the devil. Luther said, "I would have no compassion for a witch; I would burn them all." As late as 1768, John Wesley declared the giving up of witchcraft to be in effect giving up the Bible. James I., on his accession to the throne, ordered the learned work of Reginald Scot against witchcraft, to be burned in compliance with the act of Parliament of 1603, which ratified a belief in witchcraft over the three kingdoms. Under Henry VIII., from whose reign the Protestant Reformation in England dates, an act of Parliament made witchcraft felony; this act was again confirmed under Elizabeth. To doubt witchcraft was as heretical under Protestantism as under Catholicism.

Even the widely extolled Pilgrim Fathers brought this belief with them when they stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock. With the "Ducking-Stool" and the "Scarlet Letter" of shame for woman, while her companion in sin went free, they also brought with them a belief in witches. Richard Baxter, the "greatest of the Puritans," condemned those who disbelieved in witchcraft as "wicked Sadducees," his work against it adding intensity to the persecution. Cotton Mather was active in fomenting a belief in this doctrine.

So convinced were those in power of the tendency of woman to diabolism that the learned Sir Matthew Hale condemned two women without even summing up the evidence. Old women, for no other reason than that they were old, were held as most susceptible to the assaults of the devil, and most especially endowed with supernatural powers for evil, to doubt which was equivalent to doubting the Bible. We see a reason for this hatred of old women, in the fact that woman was chiefly viewed from a sensual stand-point, and when by reason of age or debility, she no longer attracted the physical admiration of man, he looked upon her as of no farther use to the world, and as possessing no right to life. At one period it was very unusual for an old woman in the north of Europe to die peaceably in her bed. The persecution against them raged with special virulence in Scotland, where upon the act of the British Parliament in 17—, abolishing the burning and hanging of witches, the assembly of the Calvinistic Church of Scotland "confessed" this act of Parliament "as a great national sin." Looked upon as a sin rather than a crime, the Church sought its control, and when coming under its power, witchcraft was punished with much greater severity than when falling under lay tribunals. It proved a source of great emolument to the Church, which was even accused of fostering it for purposes of gain. A system of "witch finders" or "witch persecutors" arose. Cardan, a famous Italian physician, said of them: "In order to obtain forfeit property, the same persons acted as accusers and judges, and invented a thousand stories as proof."

Witchcraft was as a sin almost confined to woman; a wizard was rare, one writer saying: to every 100 witches, we find but one wizard. In the time of Louis XIII. this proportion was greatly increased; "to one wizard, 10,000 witches," another person declared there were 100,000 witches in France alone. Sprenger, the great Inquisitor, author of "The Witch Hammer,"[194] through whose persecutions many countries were flooded with victims, said, "Heresy of witches, not of wizards, must we call it, for these latter are of very small account." No class or condition escaped Sprenger; we read of witches of fifteen years, and two "infernally beautiful"[195] of seventeen years.

The Parliament of Toulouse burned 400 witches at one time. Four hundred women at one hour on the public square, dying the horrid death of fire, for a crime which never existed save in the imagination of those persecutors, and which grew in their imagination from a false belief in woman's extraordinary wickedness, based upon a false theory as to original sin. Not a Christian country but was full of the horrors of witch persecution and violent death. Remy, Judge of Nancy, acknowledged to having himself burnt 800 in sixteen years. Many women were driven to suicide in fear of the torture in store for them. In 1595 sixteen of those accused by Remy, destroyed themselves rather than fall into his terrible hands. Six hundred were burnt in one small bishopric in one year; 900 during the same period in another. Seven thousand lost their lives at Treves; 1,000 in the province of Como in Italy in a single year; 500 were executed at Geneva in a single month. Under the reign of Francis I. more than 100,000 witches are said to have been put to death, and for hundreds of years this superstition controlled the Church. In Scotland the most atrocious tortures were invented, and women died "shrieking to heaven for that mercy denied them by Christian men." One writer casually mentions seeing nine burning in a single day's journey.

When for "witches" we read "women," we shall gain a more direct idea of the cruelties inflicted by the Church upon woman. Friends were encouraged to cast accusations upon friends, and rewards were offered for conviction. From the pulpit people were exhorted to bring the witch to justice. Husbands who had ceased to care for their wives, or in any way found them a burden, or who for any reason wished to dissolve the marriage tie, now found an easy method. They had but to accuse them of witchcraft, and the marriage was dissolved by the death of the wife at the stake. Mention is made of wives dragged by their husbands before the arch-Inquisitor, Sprenger, by ropes around their necks. In Protestant, as in Catholic countries, the person accused was virtually dead. She was excommunicated from humanity; designated and denounced as one whom all must shun, with whom none must buy or sell, to whom no one must give food or lodging or speech or shelter; life was not worth the living.

Besides those committing suicide, others brought to trial, tired of life amid so many horrors, falsely accused themselves, preferring a death by the torture of fire to a life of endless isolation and persecution. An English woman on her way to the stake, with a greatness of soul all must admire, freed her judges from responsibility by saying to the people, "Do not blame my judges, I wished to put an end to my own self. My parents kept aloof from me; my husband had denied me. I could not live on without disgrace. I longed for death, and so I told a lie."

Of Sir George Mackenzie, the eminent Scotch advocate, it was said:

He went to examine some women who had confessed,[196] and one of them told him "under secrecie" that she had not confessed because she was guilty, but being a poor wretch who wrought for her meat, and being defined for a witch, she knew she would starve, for no person thereafter would give her either meat or lodging, and that all men would beat her and hound dogs at her, and therefore she desired to be out of the world, whereupon she wept most bitterly, and upon her knees called upon God to witness what she said.

The death these poor women chose to suffer rather than accept a chance of life with the name of witch clinging to them,[197] was one of the most painful of which we can conceive,[198] although in the diversity of torture inflicted upon "the witch," it is scarcely possible to say which was the least agonizing.

Not only was the persecution for witchcraft brought to New England by the Puritans, but it has been considered and treated as a capital offense by the laws of both Pennsylvania and New York. Trials took place in both colonies not long before the Salem tragedy; the peaceful Quaker, William Penn, presiding upon the bench at the time of the trial of two Swedish women accused of witchcraft. The Grand Jury acting under instruction given in a charge delivered by him, found bills against them, and his skirts were only saved from the guilt of their blood by some technical irregularity in the indictment.

Marriage with devils was long one of the most ordinary accusations in witch trials. The knowledge of witches was admitted, as is shown in the widely extended belief of their ability to work miracles. A large part of the women termed witches were in reality the profoundest thinkers, the most advanced scientists of those ages. For many hundred years the knowledge of medicine, and its practice among the poorer classes was almost entirely in their hands, and many discoveries in this science are due to them; but an acquaintance with herbs soothing to pain, or healing in their qualities, was then looked upon as having been acquired through diabolical agency. Even those persons cured through the instrumentality of some woman were ready when the hour came to assert their belief in her indebtedness to the devil for that knowledge. Not only were the common people themselves ignorant of all science, but their brains were filled with superstitious fears, and the belief that knowledge had been first introduced to the world through woman's obedience to the devil. Thus the persecution which for ages raged against witches, was in reality an attack upon science at the hands of the Church.

The entire subordination of the common law to ecclesiasticism, dates in England to the reign of Stephen, who ascended the throne in 1135. Its new growth of power must be ascribed to avarice, as it then began to take cognizance of crimes, establishing an equivalent in money for every species of wrong-doing. The Church not only remitted penalties for crimes already perpetrated, but sold indulgences for the commission of new ones. Its touch upon property soon extended to all the relations of life. Marriages within the seventh degree were forbidden by the Church as incestuous, but those who could buy indulgence were enabled to get a dispensation. No crime so great that it could not be condoned for money.

Canon law gained its greatest power in the family relation in its control over wills, the guardianship of orphans, marriage and divorce. Under ecclesiastical law, marriage was held as a sacrament, was performed at the church door, the wife being required to give up her name, her person, her property, her own sacred individuality, and to promise obedience to her husband in all things. Certain hours of the day were even set aside as canonical after which no marriage could be celebrated.[199] Wherever it became the basis of legislation, the laws of succession and inheritance, and those in regard to children, constantly sacrificed the interests of wives and daughters to those of husbands and sons. Ecclesiastical law ultimately secured such a hold upon family property and became so grasping in its demands, that the civil law interfered, not, however, in the interests of wives and children, but in the interests of creditors. Canon law had its largest growth through the pious fictions of woman's created inferiority.

To the credit of humanity it must be said that the laity did not readily yield to priestly power, but made many efforts to wrest their temporal concerns from ecclesiastical control. But in the general paucity of education, together with the abnegation of the will, sedulously taught by the Church, which brought all its dread power to bear in threats of excommunication and future eternal torment, the rights of the people were gradually lost. The control of the priesthood over all things of a temporal, as well as of a spiritual nature, tended to make them a distinct body from the laity, and rights were divided into those pertaining to persons and things, the rights of persons belonging to the priesthood alone; but inasmuch as every man, whatever his condition, could become a priest, and no woman, however learned or pious or high in station, could, the whole tendency of ecclesiastical law was to separate man and woman into a holy or divine sex, and an unholy or impious sex, creating an antagonism between those whose interests are by nature the same. Thus canon law, bearing upon the business of ordinary life between man and man, fell with its greatest weight upon woman; it not only corrupted the common law in England, but perverted the civil law of other countries. The denial under common law of the right of woman to make a contract, grew out of the denial of her right of ownership. Not possessing control over her own property or her future actions, she was held as legally unable to make a binding contract.

Property is a delicate test of the condition of a nation. It is a singular fact of history that the rights of property have everywhere been recognized before the rights of persons, and wherever the rights of any class to property are attacked, it is a most subtle and dangerous assault upon personal rights. The chief restrictive element of slavery was the denial to the slave of the proceeds of his own labor. As soon as a slave was allowed to hire his time, the door of freedom began to open to him. The enslavement of woman has been much increased from the denial of the rights of property to her, not merely to the fruits of her own labor, but to the right of inheritance.

The great school of German jurists[200] teach that ownership increases both physical and moral capacity, and that as owner, actual or possible, man is a more capable and worthy being than he would otherwise be. Inasmuch as under canon law woman was debarred from giving testimony in courts of law, sisters were prohibited from taking an inheritance with brothers, and wives were deprived of property rights, it is entirely justifiable to say ecclesiastical law injured civilization by its destruction of the property rights of women.[201]

The worst features of canon law, as Blackstone frankly admits, are those touching upon the rights of woman. These features have been made permanent to this day by the power the Church gained over common law,[202] between the tenth and sixteenth centuries, since which period the complete inferiority and subordination of the female sex has been as fully maintained by the State as by the Church. The influence of canon law upon the criminal codes of England and America has but recently attracted the attention of legal minds. Wharton, whose "Criminal Law" has for years been a standard work, did not examine their relation until his seventh edition, in which he gave a copious array of authors, English, German, and Latin, from whom he deduced proof that the criminal codes of these two countries are pre-eminently based upon ecclesiastical law.

Canon law gave to the husband the power of compelling the wife's return if, for any cause, she left him. She was then at once in the position of an outlaw, branded as a run-away who had left her master's service, a wife who had left "bed and board" without consent, and whom all persons were forbidden "to harbor" or shelter "under penalty of the law." The absconding wife was in the position of an excommunicate from the Catholic Church, or of a woman condemned as a witch. Any person befriending her was held accessory to the wife's theft of herself from her husband, and rendered liable to fine and other punishment for having helped to rob the husband (master) of his wife (slave).

The present formula of advertising a wife, which so frequently disgraces the press, is due to this belief in wife-ownership.

Whereon my wife ... has left my bed and board without just cause or provocation, I hereby forbid all persons from harboring or trusting her on my account.

By old English law, in case the wife was in danger of perishing in a storm, it was allowable "to harbor" and shelter her.

It is less than thirty years since the dockets of a court in New York city, the great metropolis of our nation, were sullied by the suit of a husband against parties who had received, "harbored" and sheltered his wife after she left him, the husband recovering $10,000 damages.

Although England was Christianized in the fourth century, it was not until the tenth that a daughter had a right to reject the husband selected for her by her father;[203] and it was not until this same century that the Christian wife of a Christian husband acquired the right of eating at table with him. For many hundred years the law entered families, binding out to servile labor all unmarried women between the ages of eleven and forty.

For more than a thousand years women in England were legislated for as slaves. They were imprisoned for crimes that, if committed by a man, were punished by simple branding in the hand; and other crimes which he could atone for by a fine, were punished in her case by burning alive. Down to the end of the eighteenth century the punishment of a wife who had murdered her husband was burning[204] alive; while if the husband murdered the wife, his was hanging, "the same as if he had murdered any stranger." Her crime was petit treason, and her punishment was the same as that of the slave who had murdered her master. For woman there existed no "benefit of clergy," which in a man who could read, greatly lessened his punishment; this ability to read enabling him to perform certain priestly functions and securing him immunity in crime. The Church having first made woman ineligible to the priesthood, punished her on account of the restrictions of its own making. We who talk of the burning of wives upon the funeral pyres of husbands in India, may well turn our eyes to the records of Christian countries.