he sexes; that the laws on marriage and
divorce rested equally on man and woman; that he suffers, as much
as she possibly could, the wrongs and abuses of an ill-assorted
marriage.'

"Now it must strike every careful thinker that an immense
difference rests in the fact that man has made the laws cunningly
and selfishly for his own purpose. From Coke down to Kent, who can
cite one clause of the marriage contract where woman has the
advantage? When man suffers from false legislation he has his
remedy in his own hands. Shall woman be denied the right of protest
against laws in which she had no voice; laws which outrage the
holiest affections of her nature; laws which transcend the limits
of human legislation, in a convention called for the express
purpose of considering her wrongs? He might as well object to a
protest against the injustice of hanging a woman, because capital
punishment bears equally on man and woman.

"The contract of marriage is by no means equal. The law permits the
girl to marry at twelve years of age, while it requires several
years more of experience on the part of the boy. In entering this
compact, the man gives up nothing that he before possessed, he is a
man still; while the legal existence of the woman is suspended
during marriage, and, henceforth, she is known but in and through
the husband. She is nameless, purseless, childless--though a woman,
an heiress, and a mother.

"Blackstone says: 'The husband and wife are one, and that one is
the husband.' Chancellor Kent, in his 'Commentaries' says: '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 lost
or suspended during the continuance of the matrimonial union.'

"The wife is regarded by all legal authorities as a _feme covert_,
placed wholly _sub potestate viri_. Her moral responsibility, even,
is merged in her husband. The law takes it for granted that the
wife lives in fear of her husband; that his command is her highest
law; hence a wife is not punishable for the theft committed in the
presence of her husband. An unmarried woman can make contracts, sue
and be sued, enjoy the rights of property, to her inheritance--to
her wag