“Maternity, with its prospective agonies and its abhorred responsibilities (for I did not yet call for a child), was again thrust upon me in a few months; but I shrunk from destroying my child again. I gave birth to two living children. Then my soul rebelled against having more; but my husband was deaf to my prayers and my tears, though he himself was opposed to my having any more children, and insisted it was my fault if I did, though he persisted in his right to his sensual indulgence. How could I avoid having more children, when he was continually demanding of me the relation which naturally leads to offspring? ‘Kill them,’ was his reply, ‘before they are born, or do something to prevent conception!’ “His injustice and heartless selfishness cut me to the quick,—stung my very soul. ‘This is the man,’ I said to myself, ‘who has promised to love, cherish, and _protect_ me; who expects me to love him tenderly and evermore; whom I have promised to love till death separates us; and yet, this is the man who, without regard to my wishes and conditions, insists on his right to gratify his passion, though at the expense of my body and soul!’ My soul rose in rebellion against him. It became evident to me, that the gratification of his passion was his only object in seeking me as a wife; that this was the only claim he had upon me, or wished to have, and that he had no higher idea of marriage than as a means of licensed, reputable indulgence. “I became desperate. I could not leave my children. I knew if I left him, I could give no reason for the step, except my aversion to having maternity thrust upon me in defiance of the demands of my own nature, and I knew that all would condemn me, if I left him to escape from such an outrage, as this was not considered a wrong to me, but his right. Every feeling of my soul revolted against his taking possession of my person, without my consent, to blight and curse my body and soul to gratify his animal nature. “I came to the conclusion to stand by my own rights, and defend my person against his sensualism. I told him, candidly, how I felt, and that I must protect myself, in this respect, for he would not. I told him I was living daily in deadly fear of his passion, and of maternity; that the relation in which it resulted had become repulsive to me, and that he had brought me to view myself as a loathed, abject and prostituted woman. His wrath was roused; and finally, from fear of breaking up my family and having my helpless living children taken from me, I submitted to a hell which had no mitigation, until separation gave it to me.