Part 6 (1/2)

This sentence contains another of the constantly recurring instances of the methods by which the Suffrage mind jumps to unwarranted conclusions.

When the State of New York gave married women certain property rights, it recognized their legal existence in a new way, but not their individual existence--that had been recognized by every act of law and custom, from the registry of their birth to that of their marriage or their death.

Socially and civilly, every woman in the United States had had opportunity to make her individuality felt, and if there was any difference in advantage in respect of this, it was supposed to lie with the married woman. So true is this, that Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Mott had to hunt for oppressive laws, and most of the women of this land have no real sense of the great and liberal change in laws concerning married women since 1848.

I am no more approving of or admiring the old English common law, or the canon law, concerning women, than I am approving of or admiring the law that came to light recently in the Transvaal and would have allowed the torture of Jameson and his men, who, as a matter of fact, were allowed to go almost unpunished. The law of the Dutch Government in Africa belonged to the Middle Ages; their conduct belonged to to-day. I only believe that at the time when it was possible for one man to frame for another man such laws of physical and mental torment as every code reveals, their laws for women were the best they could devise, and were those which led to the freedom of the women of to-day. A law of England still favors only the first-born son, and he only because he is the firstborn. What wonder that girls have been denied succession; and what an evidence of man's desire to show favor and not the ”insult incident to s.e.x,” that he has placed woman on thrones upon which he has had to sustain her by main force.

There is no need that I should darken my pages with the English laws concerning married women. The Suffrage leaders have spread them abroad; Blackstone says they were intended for woman's protection and benefit, and adds the remark, ”So great a favorite is the female s.e.x with the laws of England.” If I quoted them, I should be constrained to quote barbarous laws concerning men of the same era, and to note the lack of all laws concerning the brute creation; for neither of these matters is touched by Suffrage writers. Dr. Jacobi is willing to say that ”in the eye of the law, the married white woman in the North was as devoid of personality as the African slave in the South,” and she also says: ”By another error of interpretation, certain laws which remain on the statute-book, or which have been recently added, have been considered so peculiarly favorable to women, that they are thought to prove a legislative tendency to grant special immunities to women so long as they consent to remain unfranchised.” Does she mean to say that the lawmakers have asked the women if they would consent to remain unfranchised? I thought that leaving them unfranchised without asking their consent was, in Suffrage eyes, the very front of the offending. The laws that remain on the statute-book, and those that have been recently added, go to prove to my mind that the old laws were meant to be generous as well as just; second, that the trend of legislation _is_ peculiarly favorable to woman; and, thirdly, that those laws which between man and man might be looked upon as offsets to suffrage equality, between man and woman could not be so considered. They were, therefore, proper immunities for persons whose consent was not asked through the vote because, in the nature of the difference between the s.e.xes, a prime requisite for compliance was lacking. Dr. Jacobi goes on to say: ”The fear has been expressed that these 'immunities' and 'privileges'

would be forfeited were the franchise conferred. And this fear has actually been advanced as an argument--as the basis of protest against equal suffrage.” Either the law is tyrannical to women, or it is not. If Suffrage leaders are actually talking of its privileges and immunities to women, and trying to explain them away, we may leave the burden of proof to them. But as to the gist of her remark in regard to the connection between legal privileges and equal suffrage: Fear of losing the legal immunities that are granted to both married and unmarried women on account of their att.i.tude as wards of the State when they are not able to a.s.sume the first duty implied in giving up the wards.h.i.+p--that of physical defence to themselves and others--is a most legitimate fear, and is a sound reason for protest against equal suffrage. Wrapped up with the legal privileges of women are those of their children--the rights of minors. For boys, special privileges cease at the age of twenty-one. For girls, they do not.

Legal equality would set the boy and the girl on the same level at once.

The law of equality could know no such thing as ”exemption” for the unmarried woman, or ”dower right” or ”maintenance” for the married woman that would not be equally binding on both husband and wife. In Germany, rich American women are maintaining their land-poor husbands under legal stress, ”in the style to which they have been accustomed,” because the law of Germany is ”equal” in respect to property maintenance of husband and wife. In Ohio, where Suffrage agitation has been persistent, the legislature in 1894 pa.s.sed an act ”enabling a husband, as well as a wife, to sue and obtain alimony pending divorce proceedings.”

We began by talking of legal disabilities, and, led by the Suffragists themselves, are already discussing legal immunities.

The editors of the ”History” say: ”The laws affecting woman's civil rights have been greatly improved during the past thirty years, but the political demand has made but questionable progress, though it must be counted as the chief influence in modifying the laws. The selfishness of man was readily enlisted in securing woman's civil rights, while the same element in his character antagonized her demand for political equality.” If it was his selfishness that procured woman civil rights and privileges, was it his unselfishness that formerly denied them? The fact that the States that granted them first, and most fully, are the ones where Suffrage has made least progress, suggests the injustice of the charge.

But a question of real interest is, must the political demand made by women be counted as the chief influence in modifying the laws?

In 1836, Judge Hertell presented, in the New York Legislature, a bill to secure property rights to married women, which had been drawn up under the supervision of the Hon. John Savage, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the Hon. John C. Spencer, one of the revisers of the statutes. In its behalf Ernestine Rose and Paulina Wright Davis circulated a pet.i.tion, to which they gained only five signatures among their own s.e.x.

Ernestine Rose was a Polish Jewess who had renounced all faith with her own. She was an extreme communist, and before coming here to labor for Liberalism and Woman Suffrage, she had presided over a body called ”An a.s.sociation of all Cla.s.ses of all Nations, without distinction of sect, s.e.x, party condition, or color.” Paulina Wright Davis, gifted though she was, was a radical of an extreme type. How much the character of the advocates had to do with their failure, it is impossible to say, but it appears to be another proof of the evil influence of Suffrage action upon woman's progress that so good a work should have been in hands so unfitted for it. The bill did not become a law. Mrs. Rose records that she continued to send pet.i.tions with increased numbers of signatures until 1848-49; that from 1837 to 1848 she addressed the New York Legislature five times, and a good many times after the latter date. That she was not recognized as an aid to legislation seems evident from the testimony that follows.

In the previous chapter I have quoted the editors of the ”History” as saying that the first thing that led them to demand political rights was the discussion, in several of the State legislatures, of these property questions in regard to married women. Another proof that they did not inspire the early laws is seen in the following extracts from a letter from the Hon. George Geddes, written to Mrs. Gage, in 1880, and answering her question as to who was responsible for the Married-Woman's Property- Rights bill, which was pa.s.sed in 1848. He said:

”I have very distinct recollections of the whole history of this very radical measure. Judge Fine, of St. Lawrence, was its originator, and he gave me his reasons for introducing the bill. He said that he married a lady who had some property of her own, which he had, all his life, tried to keep distinct from his, that she might have the benefit of her own, in the event of any disaster happening to him in pecuniary matters. He had found much difficulty, growing out of the old laws, in this effort to protect his wife's interests.... I, too, had special reasons for desiring this change in the law. I had a young daughter, who, in the then condition of my health, was quite likely to be left in tender years without a father, and I very much desired to protect her in the little property I might be able to leave.... I believe this law originated with Judge Fine, without any outside prompting. On the third day of the session he gave notice of his intention to introduce it, and only one pet.i.tion was presented in favor of the bill, and that came from Syracuse, and was due to the action of my personal friends.... We all felt that the laws regulating married women's, as well as married men's, rights demanded careful revision and adaptation to our times and to our civilization....

In reply to your inquiries in regard to debates that preceded the action of 1848, I must say I know of none, and I am quite sure that in our long discussions no allusion was made to anything of the kind.”

It would thus appear that neither Mrs. Gage, nor Mrs. Stanton, nor Miss Anthony knew the names of the proposer and defenders of the bill that opened the way in New York for all the liberal legislation that has followed, and thirty years after its pa.s.sage they inquired whether any debates had preceded it. Certainly, then, their own had not. It is also evident how much ”selfishness” prompted the bill.

In a pamphlet published by the New York Woman-Suffrage a.s.sociation to report their proceedings during the Const.i.tutional Convention of 1894, it is recorded that Mr. F. B. Church, of Alleghany, presented an appeal from his county asking for the suffrage. In the course of his remarks he said: ”Sir, beginning in 1848, the male citizens of the State of New York, not at the clamor of the women, as I understand it, but actuated by a sense of justice, began to remove the disabilities under which women labored at that time. Gradually, from that time on, the barriers had been stricken away, until, in 1891, I believe, the last impediments were removed.”

In 1844, Rhode Island had pa.s.sed property laws for married women. In 1848- 9 Connecticut and Texas, as well as New York, did so, apparently uninfluenced by anything except their ”sense of justice.” In 1850-'52 Alabama and Maine pa.s.sed such laws. In 1853 New Hamps.h.i.+re, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa changed their laws in this respect. They moved forward in this reform, as did the other States, before there was even a beginning of Suffrage agitation in them.

In 1847, Mrs. C. J. II. Nichols, who afterward became a Suffrage worker, addressed to the voters of Vermont a series of editorials setting forth the property disabilities of women. In October of that year, Hon. Larkin Mead, moved, he said, by her presentation, introduced a bill into the Senate, which, becoming a law, secured to the wife real estate owned by her at marriage, or acquired by gift, devise, or inheritance during marriage, with the rents, issues, and profits, as against any debts of the husband; but to make a sale or conveyance of either her realty or its use valid, it must be the joint act of husband and wife. She might by last will and testament dispose of her lands, tenements, hereditaments, and any interest therein descendable to her heirs, as if ”sole.” Mrs. Nichols says that in 1852 she drew up a pet.i.tion signed by more than two hundred business men and tax-paying widows, asking the Legislature to make women voters in school matters. Mrs. Nichols's report is clear, sound, definite, and she seems to have been of real service, and to have won what she sought. She says, ”Up to 1850 I had not taken position for suffrage, although I had shown the absurdity of regarding it as unwomanly.” She appears to have done a great deal of clever as well as earnest and spirited talking in the West, after she had ”taken position for suffrage,”

and she reports that, when she removed to Kansas, her claims were for ”equal educational rights and privileges in all the schools and inst.i.tutions of learning fostered or controlled by the State.” ”An equal right in all matters pertaining to the organization and conduct of the common schools.” ”Recognition of the mother's equal right with the father to the control and custody of their mutual offspring.” ”Protection in person, property, and earnings for married women and widows, the same as for men.” The first three were fully granted, the fourth was changed as to ”personal service.” In her pleading for ”political rights,” she was a.s.sociated with John O. Wattles, and the amendment they proposed was defeated in the Legislature.

Pet.i.tions for ”Woman's Right” and changes of the laws were circulated in Ma.s.sachusetts as early as 1848. In 1849, a year after the first Suffrage Convention, Ohio, Maine, Indiana, and Missouri, had pa.s.sed laws giving to married women the right to their own earnings. A ”Memorial” was sent by the Suffrage a.s.sociation to the Ohio Const.i.tutional Convention in 1850, from which I take the following: ”We believe the whole theory of the common law in relation to woman is unjust and degrading.” (Then follows political injustice.) ”We would especially call your attention to the legal condition of married women.” (Then follow general statements and quotations from the common law.) The attention of the memorialists was called by the proper authorities to the fact that the statute laws of Ohio had radically changed the general matters charged. In answering comment, Mrs. Coe said: ”The committee were perfectly aware of the existence of the statutes mentioned, but did not see fit to incorporate them in the pet.i.tion, not only on account of their great length, but because they do not at all invalidate the position which the pet.i.tion affects to establish--the inequality of the s.e.xes before the law; because if the wife departs from the conditions of the statutes, and thus comes under the common law, they are against her.” She then adds: ”There are other laws which might be mentioned, which really give woman an apparent advantage over man; yet, having no relevancy to the subject in the pet.i.tion, we did not see fit to introduce them.”

The ignorance displayed here is phenomenal. Common law is operative only in the absence of statute law. The Ohio statute (as with all statutes) superseded the common law; and if the woman ”departs from the condition of the statute,” she suffers the penalty prescribed therein, without reference to her previous position before the law.

One of the earliest demands made by the Suffrage a.s.sociation was for a law that should allow of absolute divorce for drunkenness; and this was soon followed by demands for divorce for other causes. In presenting a pet.i.tion to the New York Legislature, pressing these measures, Mrs. Stanton addressed the a.s.sembly, and from her remarks I take the following words: ”Allow me to call the attention of that party now so much interested in the slave of the Carolinas to the similarity in his condition and that of the mothers, wives, and daughters of the Empire State. The negro has no name. He is Cuffy Douglas, or Cuffy Brooks, just whose Cuffy he may chance to be. The woman has no name. She is Mrs. Richard Roe, or Mrs. John Doe, just whose Mrs. she may chance to be. Cuffy has no right to his earnings; he cannot buy or sell, nor make contracts, nor lay up anything that he can call his own. Mrs. Roe has no right to her earnings; she can neither buy, sell, nor make contracts, nor lay up anything that she can call her own.

Cuffy has no right to his children; they may be bound out to cancel a father's debts of honor. The white unborn child, even by the last will of the father, may be placed under the guardians.h.i.+p of a stranger, a foreigner. Cuffy has no legal right to existence; he is subject to restraint and moderate chastis.e.m.e.nt. Mrs. Roe has no legal existence; she has not the best right to her person. The husband has the power to restrain and administer moderate chastis.e.m.e.nt. The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against s.e.x. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way.

The negro's skin and the woman's s.e.x are both _prima facie_ evidence that they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man. The few social privileges which the man gives the woman, he makes up to the negro in civil rights. The woman may sit at the same table and eat with the white man; the free negro may hold property and vote.”

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 a.s.suming 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 pa.s.sed from the condition of _femme sole_ and acquired a t.i.tle 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt.” ”The husband has the power to restrain and administer moderate chastis.e.m.e.nt.” The public horsewhipping of a husband by his wife is a rare sight, but when it occurs the law is far more ready to overlook the breach of order than it is to permit the slightest attempt at a.s.sault and battery upon the wife. As the remaining statements have no reference to the laws, I may excuse myself from telling how strangely beneath the dignity of truth they seem to me. That they were urged in connection with a bill asking for divorce for drunkenness suggests that such a plea was made an entering wedge for the radical divorce measures that have been advocated in Suffrage conventions. Any State would, at that time, grant legal separation for a wife from a drunken husband, and would compel the husband to support the wife to the extent of his means.

This matter of easier divorce has been pressed steadily from the beginning, but with very little of the result that the Suffragists desired.