Life and writings of Amelia BloomerBloomer, D. C. (Dexter C.)
History
Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer
Bloomer, D. C. (Dexter C.)
Bloomer, Amelia Jenks, 1818-1894; Women's rights -- United States
“There are cases where it may be allowable and necessary to use the
husband’s initials when naming or addressing his wife, but usually
it is best for her to retain and be known by the name her parents
gave her. The name or title of her husband gives no additional
dignity or character to her, and it sinks her own individuality in
him; which no woman should allow.
“Ever since the world began all women of note have been known by
their own Christian names. Adam named his wife Eve and we have no
account of her ever being called Mrs. Adam. Victoria of England has
never called herself Mrs. Albert Saxe-Coburg, nor has Eugénie been
known as Mrs. Emperor Louis Napoleon. Go back through all history
and all married queens, all members of royal houses, all married
women of any distinction such as artists, authors, scholars,
teachers, actresses, singers, etc., have ever been known and called
by their Christian names. In our own day and country this is the
universal custom. Lydia H. Sigourney, Emma Willard, Margaret
Fuller Ossoli, Lucretia Mott, Frances D. Gage, Mary A. Livermore,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Paulina W. Davis, Isabella Beecher Hooker,
Lucy Stone Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Celia Burleigh, and
a host of others of equal or less note never called themselves
Mrs. John, Mrs. Tom and Mrs. Henry. Anna Mary Howitt, Dinah Maria
Muloch, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning may be given as instances
of English writers who have seen fit to drop their own names and
adopt the Christian name and title of their husbands. The wife
of our first president is known and revered in memory as Martha
Washington, instead of Mrs. George or Mrs. General Washington; and
Susannah Wesley is far better known than Mrs. Rev. John Wesley.
“In law, women must use their own names and no document is legal
unless it bears the Christian name of the woman who signed it. Her
appointment to any office is always made in her own name and not
that of her husband. And yet many women have gotten the idea that
their husbands’ names and titles in some way add to their dignity
and importance and so appropriate them to their own use.
“May the day soon come when all this will be done away and women
bear honored titles of their own, earned and conferred, but not
borrowed!
“A. B.”
IS IT RIGHT FOR WOMEN TO LECTURE?
Mrs. Bloomer answered this question through the press as follows:
“The press has been very severe, in some instances, in its
strictures upon a certain woman of this state for leaving home and
husband to go before our public as a lecturer, thereby as they
claim causing her husband to commit a fearful crime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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