‘By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, _the very being, or legal existence of the woman_ is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband under whose wing, protection and cover she performs everything.’ ‘For this reason, a man cannot grant anything to his wife, or enter into covenant with her; for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence, and to covenant with her would be to covenant with himself; and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife when single, are voided by the intermarriage. A woman indeed may be attorney for her husband; but that implies no separation from, but is rather a representation of, her love.’ Here now, the very being of a woman, like that of a slave, is absorbed in her master. All contracts made with her, like those made with slaves by their owners, are a mere nullity. Our kind defenders have legislated away almost all our legal rights, and in the true spirit of such injustice and oppression, have kept us in ignorance of those very laws by which we are governed. They have persuaded us, that we have no right to investigate the laws, and that, if we did, we could not comprehend them; they alone are capable of understanding the mysteries of Blackstone, &c. But they are not backward to make us feel the practical operation of their power over our actions. ‘The husband is bound to provide his wife with necessaries by law, as much as himself; and if she contracts debts for them, he is obliged to pay for them; but for anything besides necessaries, he is not chargeable.’ Yet a man may spend the property he has acquired by marriage at the ale-house, the gambling table, or in any other way that he pleases. Many instances of this kind have come to my knowledge; and women, who have brought their husbands handsome fortunes, have been left, in consequence of the wasteful and dissolute habits of their husbands, in straitened circumstances, and compelled to toil for the support of their families. ‘If the wife be indebted before marriage, the husband is bound afterwards to pay the debt; for he has adopted her and her circumstances together.’ The wife’s property is, I believe, equally liable for her husband’s debts contracted before marriage. ‘If the wife be injured in her person or property, she can bring no action for redress without her husband’s concurrence, and his name as well as her own: neither can she be sued, without making her husband a defendant.’ This law that ‘a wife can bring no action,’ &c., is similar to the law respecting slaves, ‘A slave cannot bring a suit against his master, or any other person, for an injury--his master, must bring it.’ So if any damages are recovered for an injury committed on a wife, the husband pockets it; in the case of the slave, the master does the same.