Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost AdvocatesJohnson, Helen Kendrick
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Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates
Johnson, Helen Kendrick
Women -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
It is difficult for our thought to reach the low level from which this
comparison is made. It ignores all the moral and spiritual conceptions
that gave rise to and hallow marriage. But looking upon marriage as a mere
financial compact, and taking the laws even as they then were, a few
things may be said. "Cuffy has no name that he can call his own."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton has her own baptismal name, the name of her honored
father, and that of her honored husband, and the opportunity to make those
names more her own by personal achievement than any one's else. Her
mother, her father, her husband, and her son are as dependent upon her for
preserving the character and distinctiveness of that name, as she is upon
them. Why Lucy Stone should have put inconvenience and indignity upon both
herself and her husband for the sake of continuing to wear her father's
name instead of assuming her husband's, I never could understand. She did
not share the name she gave her child. And there is another distinction
between the nameless Cuffy and the trebly-named Saxon woman. The husband's
name was not thrust upon her. By uttering the simple monosyllable "No,"
she could decline to wear it. It was only as she consented to be mistress
of a husband's heart and home that she passed from the condition of _femme
sole_ and acquired a title and an additional name. "Cuffy has no right to
his earnings." This would be of less consequence to Cuffy if he had a
right to his master's earnings. When a right to another's earnings goes
along with the mutual relation toward a home of master and mistress, the
difference between Cuffy and Mrs. Roe is unspeakable. "Cuffy cannot buy or
sell, make contracts, nor lay up anything that he can call his own." If
Cuffy had the right to prevent his master from buying, selling, making
contracts, or laying up anything that he could call his own until Cuffy's
wants had been provided for in the most ample manner, the world would have
felt less moved over Cuffy's wrongs. "Cuffy has no right to his children."
Mrs. Roe has a right to compel Mr. Roe to bestow his name upon her
children, and to support the boys until they are twenty-one, and the girls
forever. "Cuffy has no legal right to existence." Mrs. Roe has so much
legal right to existence that she stands toward the State and toward her
husband in the relation of a preferred creditor. The State cannot call
upon her for its most arduous duties, which must however be performed in
her behalf. Her husband cannot dispose of real property without her
signature. If he dies solvent, nothing can prevent her taking a fair share
of his estate, and he may give her the whole; but if he dies bankrupt,
neither his will, nor the State, nor anything else, can make her pay one
dollar of his debts. "Cuffy is subject to restraint and moderate
chastisement." "The husband has the power to restrain and administer
moderate chastisement." The public horsewhipping of a husband by his wife
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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