History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 111

Such a memorial, presented to the several States during the coming winter, could not fail of doing good. It would be pressing home this great question upon all the powers that be in the whole nation; and, with comparatively little effort, would, at least, create a healthful agitation. Who shall say that the just men of some State will not even accord to us the franchise we claim? With this hint to the wise, I remain, as ever,

Yours, for equal human rights, ANTOINETTE L. BROWN BLACKWELL.

Mr. HATTELLE moved that a Committee be at once appointed to draft such a memorial, which was adopted.

WENDELL PHILLIPS rose to offer as an amendment, that a recommendation go forth from this Convention to the women of each State, to inaugurate their presentation of the subject to their several Legislatures.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson proposed that the friends of Woman Suffrage should publish an almanac each year giving the advance steps in their movement. He issued one for 1858, from which we clip the following:

THE WOMAN'S RIGHTS ALMANAC.

THE HISTORY OF WOMAN IN THREE PICTURES.

I. HINDOO LAWS. 2000 B. C.--"A man, both day and night, must keep his wife so much in subjection, that she by no means be mistress of her own actions. If the wife have her own free-will, notwithstanding she be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss."

"The Creator formed woman for this purpose, that man might have s.e.xual intercourse with her, and that children might be born from thence."

"A woman shall never go out of the house without the consent of her husband.... and shall act according to the orders of her husband, and shall pay a proper respect to the Deity, her husband's father, the spiritual guide, and the guests; and shall not eat until she has served them with victuals (if it is physic, she may take it before they eat); a woman also shall never go to a stranger's house, and shall not stand at the door, and must never look out of a window."

"If a woman, following her own inclinations, goes whithersoever she choose, and does not regard the words of her master, such a woman shall be turned away."

"If a man goes on a journey, his wife shall not divert herself by play, nor shall see any public show, nor shall laugh, nor shall dress herself with jewels and fine clothes, nor shall see dancing, nor hear music, nor shall sit in the window, nor shall ride out, nor shall behold anything choice or rare, but shall fasten well the house-door and remain private; and shall not eat any dainty victuals, and shall not view herself in a mirror; she shall never exercise herself in any such agreeable employment during the absence of her husband."

"It is proper for every woman, after her husband's death, to burn herself in the fire with his corpse."

It will be seen that the following laws scarcely vary at all, in principle, from the preceding:

II. ANGLO-SAXON LAWS. 1848.--"By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, _the very being or existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage_, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and _covert_ she performs everything; and is, therefore, called in our Law-French a _feme-covert_, is said to be _covert-baron_, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her _coverture_. Upon this principle, of an union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities that either of them acquire by the marriage."--_1 Blackstone Com_., 356.

"The husband also, by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction. For, as he is to answer for her misbehavior, the law thought it reasonable to intrust him with this power of restraining her by domestic chastis.e.m.e.nt, in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children. But this power of correction was confined within reasonable bounds, and the husband was prohibited from using any violence to his wife, _aliter quam ad virum, ex causa regiminis et castigationis uxoris suae licite et rationabiliter pertinet_ (except as lawfully and reasonably belongs to a husband, for the sake of governing and disciplining his wife). The civil law gave the husband the same, or a larger authority over his wife, allowing him, for some misdemeanors, _flagellis et Fustibus acriter verberare uxorem_ (to beat his wife severely with whips and cudgels); for others only _modicam castigationem adhibere_ (to administer moderate chastis.e.m.e.nt). But with us, in the politer reign of Charles II., this power of correction began to be doubted, and a wife may now have security of peace against the husband, or, in return, a husband against his wife. Yet the lower rank of people, who were always fond of the old common law, still claim and exact their ancient privilege, and the courts of law will still permit a husband to restrain a wife of her liberty in case of any gross misbehavior."--_1 Blackstone_, 366.

"The legal effects of marriage are generally deducible from the principle of the common law by which the husband and wife are regarded as one person, and her legal existence and authority are in a degree lost or suspended during the continuance of the matrimonial union."--_2 Kent's Comm. on Am. Law_, 129.

"Even now, in countries of the most polished habits, a considerable lat.i.tude is allowed to marital coercion. In England the husband has the right of imposing _such corporal restraints as he may deem necessary_, for securing to himself the fulfillment of the obligations imposed on the wife by virtue of the marriage contract. He may, in the plenitude of his power, adopt every act of physical coercion which does not endanger the life or health of the wife, or render cohabitation unsafe."--_Petersdorff's Abridgement, note_.

"The husband hath, by law, power and dominion over his wife, and _may keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and may beat her_, but not in a violent or cruel manner."--_Bacon's Abridgement, t.i.tle "Baron aud Feme," B. 9_.

"_The wife is only the servant of her husband._"--_Baron Alderson_ (_Wharton's Laws relating to the Women of England_), _p. 168_.

"It is probably not generally known, that whenever a woman has accepted an offer of marriage, all she has, or expects to have, becomes virtually the property of the man thus accepted as a husband; and no gift or deed executed by her between the period of acceptance and the marriage is held to be valid; for were she permitted to give away or otherwise settle her property, he might be disappointed in the wealth he looked to in making the offer."--_Roper, Law of Husband and Wife, Book I., ch. xiii_.

"A lady whose husband had been unsuccessful in business, established herself as a milliner in Manchester. After some years of toil, she realized sufficient for the family to live upon comfortably, the husband having done nothing meanwhile. They lived for a time in easy circ.u.mstances, after she gave up business, and then the husband died, _bequeathing all his wife's earnings to his own illegitimate children_. At the age of sixty-two, she was compelled, in order to gain her bread, to return to business."--_Westminster Review, Oct., 1856_.

MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE'S JUDGMENT "_in re Cochrane_."--The facts were briefly these. A writ of _habeas corpus_ had been granted to the wife, who, having been brought into the power of the husband by strategem, had since that time been kept in confinement by him. By the return to the writ, it appeared that the parties had lived together for about three years after their marriage on terms of apparent affection, and had two children; that in May, 1836, Mrs. Cochrane withdrew herself and offspring from his house and protection, and had resided away from him against his will, for nearly four years. While absent from her husband, Mrs. Cochrane had always resided with her mother, nor was there the slightest imputation on her honor. In ordering her to be restored to her husband, the learned judge, after stating the question to be whether by the common law, the husband, in order to prevent his wife from eloping, _has a right to confine her in his own dwelling-house, and restrain her from liberty for an indefinite time_, using no cruelty nor imposing any hardship or unnecessary restraint on his part, and on hers there being no reason from her past conduct to apprehend that she will avail herself of her absence from his control to injure either his honor or his property, stated, "_That there could be no doubt of the general dominion which the law of England attributes to the husband over the wife_."--_8 Dowling's P. C. 360_.

_Quoted in Westminster Review, Oct., 1856_.

III. SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 1857.--It is obvious that the English common law, as above stated, is scarcely a step beyond barbarism. Yet this law remained almost unaltered in the United States, as respects woman, till the year 1848--the year of the first local Woman's Rights Convention, the first National one being held in 1850. Since then every year has brought improvements, and even those who denounce the Woman's Rights Movement, admit the value of these its results.

There is near Trenton, says _The Newark Advertiser_, a woman who is a skillful mechanic. She has made a carriage, and can make a violin or a gun. She is only 35 years old.

This is told as though it were something wonderful for a woman to have mechanical genius; when the fact is, that there are thousands all over the country who would make as good mechanics and handle tools with as much skill and dexterity as men, if they were only allowed to make manifest their ingenuity and inclinations. A girl's hands and head are formed very much like those of a boy, and if put to a trade at the age when boys are usually apprenticed, she will master her business quite as soon as the boy--be the trade what it may.

SALE OF A WIFE AT WORCESTER, ENGLAND.--One of these immoral and illegal transactions was recently completed at Worcester. The agreement between the fellow who sold and the fellow who bought is given in _The Worcester Chronicle_:

"Thomas Middleton delivered up his wife, Mary Middleton, to Phillip Rostins, and sold her for one shilling and a quart of ale, and parted wholly and solely for life, not trouble one another for life. Witness, Signed Thomas |x| Middleton. Witness, Mary Middleton, his wife.

Witness, Phillip |x| Rostins. Witness, S. H. Stone, Crown Inn, Friar Street."

FEMALE INVENTORS.--"Man, having excluded woman from all opportunity of mechanical education, turns and reproaches her with having invented nothing. But one remarkable fact is overlooked. Society limits woman's sphere to the needle, the spindle, and the basket; and tradition reports that she _herself invented all three_. If she has invented her tools as fast as she has found opportunity to use them, can more be asked?"--_T. W. Higginson_.

In the ancient Hindoo dramas, wives do not speak the same language with their husbands, but employ the dialect of slaves.

A correspondent of _The London Spectator_ suggests:--"The employment of women _as clerks at railway stations_ would not be an unprecedented innovation; they not unfrequently fill that position abroad; and I can recall at least one instance, when, at a princ.i.p.al station in France, a female clerk displayed under difficult circ.u.mstances an amount of zeal and intelligence which showed her to be admirably suited to her office--'the right _woman_ in the right place.'"

The word courage is, in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, a _feminine_ noun.

Upwards of ten thousand females in New York, forty thousand in Paris, and eighty thousand in London, are said, by statisticians, to regularly earn a daily living by immoral practices. And yet all these are Christian cities!

A widow lady of Bury, Mary Chapman, who would appear to have been a warlike dame, making her will in 1649, leaves to one of her sons, among other things, "also _my_ muskett, rest, bandileers, sword, and headpiece, _my_ jacke, a fine paire of sheets, and a hutche."

Addison, in _The Spectator_, refers to a French author, who mentions that the ladies of the court of France, in his time, thought it ill-breeding and a kind of female pedantry, to p.r.o.nounce a hard word right, for which reason they took frequent occasion to use hard words, that they might show a politeness in murdering them. The author further adds, that a lady of some quality at court, having accidentally made use of a hard word in a proper place, and p.r.o.nounced it right, the whole a.s.sembly was out of countenance for her.

SEWING IN NEW YORK.--"I am informed from one source, that based on a calculation some two years ago, the number of those who live by sewing in New York exceeds fifteen thousand. Another, who has good means of information, tells me there are forty thousand earning fifteen shillings ($1.87-1/2) per week, and paying twelve shillings ($1.50) for board, making shirts at four cents."--_E. H. Chapin_, "_Moral Aspects of City Life_."

The first "pilgrim" who stepped ash.o.r.e on Plymouth Rock is said, by tradition, to have been a young girl, named Mary Chilton.

The _St. Louis Republican_ mentions that there is one feature about the steamer Illinois Belle, of peculiar attractiveness--a lady clerk.

"Look at her bills of lading, and 'Mary J. Patterson, clerk,' will be seen traced to a delicate and very neat style of chirography. A lady clerk on a Western steamer! It speaks strongly of our moral progress."

George Borrow, in his singular narrative, "The Romany Rye," states that the sale of a wife, with a halter round her neck, is still a legal transaction in England. It must be done in the cattle-market, as if she were a mare, "all women being considered as mares by old English law, _and indeed called mares in certain counties where genuine old English is still preserved_."

TESTIMONIAL TO MISS MITCh.e.l.l.--The fame of our talented countrywoman, Miss Maria Mitch.e.l.l, of Nantucket, has spread far and wide among astronomers, and is cherished with pride by all Americans. We are glad to learn that it is proposed to present her a testimonial which will be at once an appropriate tribute to her talents, and an aid to the future prosecution of her astronomical researches. An observatory on Nantucket Island is for sale on very favorable terms, and a plan is on foot for its purchase, to be presented to her. The sum needed is $3,000, of which more than a third has been raised by ladies in Philadelphia and its neighborhood.

Miss Mitch.e.l.l is now in Europe, visiting the princ.i.p.al observatories and astronomers there, and it is hoped that she will soon be gratefully surprised by learning that the very imperfect means. .h.i.therto at her disposal in pursuing her favorite science are to be replaced on her return by a collection of instruments which she will be delighted to possess. Drs. Bond, of Harvard College Observatory, and Hall, of Providence, have interested themselves in securing this object, and express strongly their opinion that valuable results to science can not fail to be realized by furnishing so skillful and diligent an observer as Miss Mitch.e.l.l the proposed aids to her researches. Dr. Bond expresses the conviction that Nantucket enjoys special advantages as an astronomical site, on account of its comparative exemption from thermometrical disturbances of the atmosphere.

We hope this worthy tribute to our countrywoman's scientific merit will not fail to be paid. Miss Mitch.e.l.l's friends have the refusal of the observatory only till September 1st, and several other purchasers are ready to take it at once. Dr. Geo. Choate, of Salem, has consented to receive the pledges of such as desire to be enrolled among the subscribers to the fund, among whose names are already the honored ones of Edward Everett, J. I. Bowditch, John C. Brown, of Providence, and F. Peabody, of Salem, besides other munificent patrons of science.--_Journal of Commerce._

LEARN TO SWIM.--When the steamer Alida was sinking from her collision with the Fashion, a Kentucky girl of seventeen was standing on the guard, looking upon the confusion of the pa.s.sengers, and occasionally turning and looking anxiously toward the sh.o.r.e. A gallant young man stepped up to her and offered to convey her safely to sh.o.r.e. "Thank you," replied the lady, "you need not trouble yourself; I am only waiting for the crowd to get out of the way, when I can take care of myself." Soon the crowd cleared the s.p.a.ce, and the lady plunged into the water, and swam to the sh.o.r.e with ease, and without any apparent fear.

A LADY HORSEBREAKER IN FRANCE.--In consequence of the success obtained by Madame Isabelle in breaking in horses for the Russian army, the French Minister of War lately authorized her to proceed officially before a commission, composed of general and superior officers of cavalry, with General Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely at their head, to a practical demonstration of her method on a certain number of young cavalry horses. After twenty days' training, the horses were so perfectly broken in, that the minister no longer hesitated to enter into an arrangement with Madame Isabelle to introduce her system into all the imperial schools of cavalry, beginning with that of Saumur.--_Galignani's Messenger_.

Since the pa.s.sage of what is called the Married Woman's Act, in 1848, in Pennsylvania, there have been brought, in the Court of Common Pleas, one thousand one hundred and thirty-five suits for divorce. A large majority of the cases are brought by the wives, on the ground of cruel treatment and desertion.

"Women ruled all, and ministers of state Were at the doors of women forced to wait-- Women, who've oft as sovereigns graced the land, But never governed well at second-hand."

_Churchill's Satires, A.D. 1761._