3. We object to the estimate of woman which the law sustains, which shuts her out from all public employment, for many branches of which she is better fitted than man. 4. We object to that estimate of woman's chastity which makes its existence or non-existence of importance only as it affects the comfort or income of man. We do not mean that the present _interpretation_ of the common law does not _sometimes_ show a more liberal estimate than the law itself, but rather that the existence of this law, unrepealed, _unchristianized_, is a forcible restraint upon the progress of society. "A legal fiction," says Maine in his "Ancient Law," "signifies any assumption which conceals, or affects to conceal, the fact, that a rule of law has undergone alteration, its _letter_ remaining unchanged, while its operation is modified." Such fictions may be useful in the infancy of society; but, like absurd formulas and embarrassing technicalities, they should give way before advancing common sense, before the diffusion of general intelligence and a common-school system, which is destined to qualify the humblest man for a full understanding of the law under which he lives. We have now to consider the laws concerning _married women_. "On whatsoever branch of jurisprudence may lie the charge," says a late reviewer, "of working the heaviest sum of suffering, perhaps we shall not err in saying that the sharpest and cruellest pangs are those which have been inflicted by our marriage-laws." In making our abstracts, we have need to avoid the absurd complications which confuse, not only simple-minded people, but lawyers themselves; and, to avoid any charge of ignorance or mistake, we will, as far as possible, adopt the language of Mrs. Bodichon's "Summary," which has stood for six years before the English public without impeachment. We shall not discuss the question, as to what constitutes fitness for marriage in the eye of the law. In Scotland and in England, the consent of the parties is said to be the "essence of marriage;" but, alas! in how many cases is this "consent" taken for granted only, it being, in fact, the most baseless of legal fictions! In commenting on the English law as compared with the Scotch, the reviewer adds, "A code so unsatisfactory, so unsettled, and by every alteration coming so palpably near to their own system, is one which Scotchmen may be pardoned for declining further to consider, and which certainly they cannot be expected to recognize as the model to which their own should be conformed." The rule of the English law was, at the institution of the Divorce Court, that the wife should have the same domicile as her husband, and that within English territory. A dishonest domicile barred her claim to divorce; and the husband who abandoned his wife, and fixed his residence abroad, effectually bound her to him. Justice has of late been done, because it was justice, heedless of the question of domicile.