"Men often think to bring about great results by violent and unprepared effort; but it is only in fair and forecast order, 'as the earth bringeth forth her bud,' that righteousness and praise may spring forth before the nations."--JOHN RUSKIN. In passing last to the United States of America, one is tempted to ask, with Anna Brewster when rehearsing the hardships of Helvetian women, "Can it be true, as the advocates of despotic government often say, that under no government are women so harshly treated, so stripped of all independent rights, as under a republic? In republican Helvetia, the Vaudois peasant woman leaves all household care, to stand, spring, summer, and autumn, in her vineyard; but not a bunch of grapes can she gather for the market, without her husband's leave. _He_ may have loitered and smoked through every sunny day, while _she_ has dug and dressed and watered; but she may not sell one grape to buy bread for her children." And this is a picturesque statement of the English common law, on which the common law of the United States still rests in the main, and on which it has rested entirely until within the last ten years. A few passages from Chancellor Kent will indicate,-- I. The estimate of woman formed by this law, and the property-laws built upon this estimate. II. The laws which regulate divorce. We shall have to consider,-- III. Woman's general civil position; and,-- IV. The right of suffrage. Fortunately for us, Chancellor Kent talks plain English. He tells us exactly what the law means, and sets it forth as if it were written to be understood; which is not exactly the case with all his predecessors. As to the estimate of woman on which the laws are based, we have, in connection with what we have already quoted from English law-books, the following statement:-- "But as the husband is the guardian of the wife, and bound to protect and maintain her, the law has given him a reasonable superiority and control over her person; and he may even put gentle restraints upon her liberty, if her conduct be such as to require it. The husband is the best judge of the wants of the family, and the means of supplying them; and, if he shifts his domicile, the wife is bound to follow him."--_Kent's Commentaries_, vol. ii. p. 180. The best comment on this is found, I think, in a story told by Mrs. Stowe, who says that she once saw a little hut perched on a barren ledge of the Alps, out of reach of human help, and without pasture; but a little below it were stretches of sweet Alpine grass, inviting to eye and foot, and capable of affording sustenance to goats and sheep. "How long have you lived here?" asked Mrs. Stowe of the old woman. "Above forty years."--"And what made you come so far up? Don't you like the meadow?"--"I don't know," was the reply: "it was the _man's notion_."