Have his rights as a citizen of a republic, the elective franchise with all its advantages, so changed his nature that he has cease to be man?
Ernestine Rose
- More quotations by Activist
Ernestine Rose quotes
According to a late act, the wife has a right to the property she brings at marriage, or receives in any way after marriage. Here is some provision for the favored few; but for the laboring many, there is none.
After having heard the letter read from our poor incarcerated sisters of France, well might we exclaim, Alas poor France! Where is thy glory? Where is the glory of the Revolution of 1848, in which shone forth the pure and magnanimous spirit of an oppressed nation struggling for freedom!
Again, I shall be told that the law presumes the husband to be kind, affectionate, and ready to provide for and protect his wife. But what right, I ask, has the law to presume at all on the subject?
And where there is property, it ought to be divided equally between them, with an additional provision from the father toward the maintenance and education of the children.
Away with that folly that her rights would be detrimental to her character - that if she were recognized as the equal to a man she would cease to be a woman!
Blind submission in women is considered a virtue, while submission to wrong is itself wrong, and resistance to wrong is virtue alike in women as in man.
But it will be said that the husband provides for the wife, or in other words, he feeds, clothes and shelters her! I wish I had the power to make every one before me fully realize the degradation contained in that idea.
But say some, would you expose woman to the contact of rough, rude, drinking, swearing, fighting men at the ballot box? What a humiliating confession lies in this plea for keeping woman in the background!
But the judge showed us the comparative value which he set on these two kinds of property. But then you must remember that the boots were taken by a stranger, while the wife was insulted by her legal owner!
But when the wife with the care of the whole household on her shoulders, is not able to put them in the best order, how much care does he do for them? Oh no!
But, say they, 'in case of a second marriage, the children must be protected in their property.' Does that reason not hold as good in the case of the husband as in that of the wife?
Carry out the republican principle of universal suffrage, or strike it from your banners and substitute 'Freedom and Power to one half of society, and Submission and Slavery to the other.'
Cultivate the frontal portion of her brain as much as that of man is cultivated, and she will stand his equal at least. Even now, where her mind has been called out at all, her intellect is as bright, as capacious, and as powerful as his.
Do you not yet understand what has made woman what she is? Then see what the sickly taste and perverted judgment of man now admires in woman.
Fathers like to have children good-natured, well-behaved, and comfortable, but how to put them in that desirable condition is out of their philosophy.
From the cradle to the grave she is subject to the power and control of man. Father, guardian, or husband, one conveys her like some piece of merchandise over to the other.
Has she been wanting in ardor and enthusiasm? Has she not mingled her blood with that of her husband, son, and sire? Or has she been recreant in hailing the motto of liberty that at the first step she takes practically to claim the recognition of her rights she is rewarded with the doom of a martyr?
Have his rights as a citizen of a republic, the elective franchise with all its advantages, so changed his nature that he has cease to be man?
Hence the necessity to guard against bad ones. Hence also the reason why we call on the nation to remove the legal shackles from woman, and it will have a beneficial effect on that still greater tyrant she has to contend with, Public Opinion.
Her property may be consumed by taxes to defray the expenses of that unholy, unrighteous custom called war, yet she has no power to give her vote against it.
I grant that owing to the present unjust and unequal reward for labor, many have to work too hard for a subsistence; but whatever his vocation, he has to attend (to his business) before as after marriage.
I know that some endeavor to throw the mantle of romance over the subject and treat woman like some ideal existence, not liable to the ills of life. Let those deal in fancy who have nothing better to deal in; we have to do with sober, sad realities, with stubborn facts.
If any difference should be made by law between husband and wife, reason, justice and humanity, if their voices were heard, would dictate that it should be in her favor.
If man, in his superior wisdom, cannot devise means to enable woman to deposit her vote without having her finer sensibilities shocked by such disgraceful conduct, then there is an additional reason as well as necessity why she should be there to civilize and purify him, even at the ballot box.
If they are unsuccessful in married life, who suffers more the bitter consequences of poverty than the wife? But if successful, she has not a dollar to call her own.
In case of separation, why should the children be taken from the protecting care of the mother? Who has a better right to them than she? How much do fathers generally do toward bringing them up?
In morals, bad as she is, she is generally considered his superior. In the intellectual sphere, give her a fair chance before you pronounce a verdict against her.
In the laws of the land, she has no rights; in government she has no voice. And in spite of another principle recognized in this Republic, namely, that 'taxation without representation is tyranny,' she is taxed without being represented.
Is the brutality of some men, then, a reason why woman should be kept from her rights?
It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so.
It is high time to compel man by the might of right to give woman her political, legal and social rights. She will find her own sphere in accordance with her capacities, powers and tastes; and yet she will be woman still.
Look at your bachelors, and see if they do not strive as much for wealth, and attend as steadily to business as married men.
Man forgets that woman can not be degraded without its reacting on himself.
Much is said about the burdens and responsibilities of married men. Responsibilities indeed there are, if they but felt them: but as to burdens what are they?
No! the husband has little or increase of burden, and every increase of comfort after marriage; while most of the burdens, cares, pains, and penalties of married life fall on the wife. How unjust and cruel then to have all the laws in his favor!
Not health and strength of body and mind, but a pale delicate face; hands too small to grasp a broom, for that were treason to a lady.
Not long ago, I saw an account of two offenders, brought before a Justice of New York. One was charged with stealing a pair of boots, for which offense he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment; the other crime was assault and battery upon his wife; he was let off with a reprimand by the judge!
Oh! The crying injustice towards woman! She is crushed in every step she takes, and then insulted for being what a most pernicious education and corrupt public sentiment has made her.
She like the tender ivy plant, bent, yet unbroken by the storms of life, not only upholds her own hopeful courage, but clings around the tempest-fallen oak, to speak hope to his faltering spirit, and shelter him from the returning blast of the storm.
The bringing up and safety of the children are left with the mother, and safe they are in her hands. But a few hundred or thousand dollars can not be intrusted with her!
The few bright meteors in man's intellectual horizon could well be matched by women, were she allowed to occupy the same elevated position.
The impress of her mind is stamped on him by nature and the early education of the mother, which no after-training can entirely efface; and therefore, the estimation she is held in falls back with double force upon him. Yet, from the force of prejudice against her, he knows it not.
The main cause is a pernicious falsehood propagated against her being, namely that she is inferior by her nature. Inferior in what? What has man ever done that woman, under the same advantages could not do?
The mass of the people commence life with no other capital than the union of head, hearts and hands. To the benefit of this best of capital the wife has no right.
The sanctuary of affliction must be desecrated by executors; everything must be ransacked and assessed, lest she should steal something out of her own house: and to cap the climax, the children must be placed under guardians.
Then look at woman under suffering, reverse of fortune, and affliction when the strength and power of man have sunk to the lowest ebb, when his mind is overwhelmed by the dark waters of despair.
There is no reason against woman's elevation, but prejudices.
These things are too well known to require repetition. And do you ask for fortitude, energy, and perseverance?
This is humiliating indeed but nevertheless true, and the sooner these things are known and understood, the better for humanity. It is no fancy sketch.
To illustrate my point, look at that infamous, detestable law, which was written in human blood, and signed and sealed with life and liberty, that eternal stain on the statute book of this country, the Fugitive Slave Law.
We have hardly an adequate idea how all-powerful law is in forming public opinion, in giving tone and character to the mass of society.
When he comes home from business and the child is in good humor and handsome trim, he takes the little darling on his knee and plays with it.
When the husband dies poor, to be sure no guardian is required, and the children are left for the mother to care and toil for, as best she may. But when anything is left for their maintenance, then it must be placed in the hands of strangers for safekeeping!
Where again I ask is the result of those noble achievements, when woman, aye, one half of the nation, is deprived of her rights: Has woman, then been idle during the contest between 'right and might'?
Whether from nature, habit, or both, the mother is much more capable of administering to their health and comfort than the father and therefore she has the best right to them.
Why should women not be a martyr for her cause?
Will you tell us that women have no Newtons, Shakespeares and Byrons?
Yet amid all blighting crushing circumstances - confined within the narrowest possible limits, trampled upon by prejudice and injustice, from her education and position forced to occupy herself almost exclusively with the most trivial affairs her intellect is as good as his.
Similiar authors
Emma Goldman
Saul Alinsky
Eliza Farnham
Rosa Parks
Sojourner Truth
Ella Baker
Patricia Ireland
Mother Jones
Ingrid Newkirk
Emma Willard