As a protection against the common law, it is usual to have some settlement of property made upon the wife; and, in respect to _this_ property, the courts of equity regard her as a single woman. Such settlements are very intricate, and should be made by an experienced lawyer. The wife's property belonging to the husband, should her scissors, thimble, or petticoats be stolen, the indictment must describe either of these articles as his! Of divorce it is only necessary to say, that a divorce from the bonds of matrimony in England could be obtained only by act of Parliament; the right of investigation resting with the House of Lords alone. Until the passage of the New Divorce Bill, only three such divorces had ever been granted to a woman's petition. The expense of the most ordinary bill was between three and four thousand dollars. Nor need we dwell long on such laws as relate to _widows_. You may be interested to hear, that, _after_ her husband's death, the widow recovers her right to her own clothes and jewels; also that the law does not compel her to bury him, that being the duty of his legal representative. The indignation which we might naturally feel at the suggestion that a wife _could_ forsake her unburied dead, cools a little as the law goes on to state, that a husband _can_, of _course_, deprive a wife of all share in his personal estate. Very graciously, also, the widow is permitted to remain forty days in her husband's house, provided that she do not _re_-marry within that time! The result of a great deal of reading of a great many law-books is only this,--that we are more firmly convinced than ever, that the most necessary reform is a simple erasure from the statute-book of whatever recognizes distinctions of sex. You should make woman, in the eye of the law, what she has always been in the eye of God,--a responsible human being; and make laws which such beings, male or female, can obey. Even Christian, in his edition of Blackstone, said long ago, that there was no reason why civil rights should be refused to single women. In every respect but this, the single woman is independent; but let her take to herself a husband, and the law steps in to protect her, and she finds herself in a position of what is called "reasonable restraint." He may give her, says Blackstone, _moderate correction_; he may adopt any act of coercion that does not endanger life; he may beat her, but not violently. She may, by her labor, support him: but she cannot prevent him from bestowing her earnings, should he happen to die, upon those who have most wronged her in life; his mistress, it may be, or his illegitimate children. Do you tell me that men of good feeling never act on such laws? Why, then, should men of good feeling be unwilling to wipe them from the statute-book?