ism. The law relating to woman tends to make every family a barony or a monarchy or a despotism, of which the husband is the baron, king, or despot, and the wife

but the law has not kept pace with the advance of ideas, manners, and customs."

ED--

it would not be better to begin the provision earlier, and see that homes are also provided, in some form, for the middle-aged and even the young. T

st wholly through the fault of the wife. Nor is this confined to wedded homes alone. I have known a son who lived alone, patiently and uncomplainingly, with that saddest of all conceivable companions, a drunken mother. I have known another young man who supported in his own home a mother and sister, both habitual dru

produced by club-life, or by the life of society-membership, in a man. A brilliant young married belle in London once told me that she was glad her husband was so fond of his club, for it amused him every night while she went to balls. "Married men do not go much into society here," she sa

ing than these, perhaps, are the secret societies which have so revived among us since the war, and which consume time so fearfully. There was a case mentioned in the newspapers lately of a man who belonged to some twenty of these associations; and when he died, and each wished to conduct his funeral, great was the strife! In the small city where I write there are seventeen secret societies down in the directory, and I suppose as many more not so conspicuous. I meet men who assure me that they habitually atte

t; and hence, naturally enough, that the husband has almost no duties in it. If he is amused there, let him stay there; but, as it is not his recognized sphere of duty, he is not actually violating any duty by absenting himself. This theory even pervades our manuals of m

I now regard the home as the joint sphere of man and woman, and the sphere of civil government more of an open question as between the two. It is, however, to be lamente

ethics as broadly as this, we shall no longer need to advertise "Homes

IN OF CI

along the ground by a party of naked savages, armed literally to the teeth, while those of another band grasp her by the arm, and almost tear her asunder in the effort to hold her back.

iage--the orange-blossoms, the bridal veil, the church service, the wedding feast--these are only the "bright consummate flower" reared by civilization

If it never has been altered, perhaps it will not be; but a proved alteration of an inch in a year opens the way to an indefinite modification. The st

ys be what it has been," when one glance at Sir John Lubbock's picture shows that there is no fixed "has been," but that her original position was long since altered and revised. Those who still use this

astonishment of all English visitors when young ladies teach classes in geometry and Latin, in our high schools; the surprise of foreigners at seeing the rough throng in the Cooper Institute readi

rd More" on the other! But who can say that the whole relation between man and woman reached its climax there, and that where the past has brought changes so vast the future is to add

vely free movements of the English or American woman. From the kitchen to the public lecture-room, from that to the lecture-platform, and from that again to the ballot-box,--these are far slighter steps than those which gradually lifted the savage girl of Sir John Lubbock's picture into the possession of the

W-WATE

nature, so that there can be in it no great or essential change. Every successive modification is resisted as "a reform against nature;"

the street, and to call on every passer-by to strike her a blow. Not satisfied with this, he placed her on the ground, and tied heavy weights on her limbs until one arm was broken. When finally released, she made a complaint against him in

e justice, of modern society, have been gradually upheaved from some such depth as this. When the gypsies described by Leland treat even the ground trodden upon by a woman as impure, they simply illustrate the low plane from which all the elevation of woman has begun. All these things show that the position of that sex in society, so far from being a thing in itself permanent, has

ays, "I have all the rights I want," is she on any surer ground? Grant that the difference is vast between the two. How do we know that even the later condition is final, or that anything is final but entire equality b

serf, or slave. That this is not always the fact is not due to the law, but to the enlarged humanity which spurns the narrow limits of its rules. The progress of civilization has changed the family from a barony to a republic; but the law has not kept pace with the advance of ideas, manners, and customs. And, although public opinion is

te this statement; but we also know how almost every one of these changes was resisted

se on the Law of Contracts

B

eak of the beauty of the Church service on an occasion like that; but, after doing this, I felt compelled to protest against the unrighteous pledge to obey. "I hope,

ked. "Is it because you kn

ey ought no

ts' reflection, and looking up fra

ion, which he yet thought they ought not to incur, and did not believe that they would keep. There could hardly be a better illustration of the confusion in the public min

course they talk about oppression and emancipation. It is the word obey that constitutes the one, and shows the need of the other. Whoever is pledged to obey is technically and literally a slave, no matter how many roses surround the chains. All the more so if the slavery is self-i

r and struck the bride on the neck as she crossed his threshold, was unmistakable. As my black sergeant said, when a white prisoner questioned his authority, and he pointed to the chevrons on his sleeve, "Dat mean guv'ment." All these forms mean simply government

dience by a spiritual tie makes it worse. Chattel slavery was not so bad; for, though the master might pervert religion for his own satisfaction, he could not impose upon the slave. Never yet did I see a negro slave who thought it a duty to obey his master; and therefore there was always some dream of re

he wife of her pastor. She unrolled before her the long catalogue of merciless outrages to which she had been subject, endangering finally her health, her life, and that of her children born and to be born. When she turn

not worse. Woman has no right to delegate, nor man to assume, a responsibility so awful. Just in proportion as it is consistently carried out, it trains men from boyhood into self-indulgent tyrants; and, while some women are transformed by it t

N THE C

oke of service upon her. This is her view; but is this the historic fact in regard to marriage? Not at all. The pledge of obedience--the whole theory of inequality in marriage--is simply what is left to us of a former st

powers passed to the son or grandson, as the possible head of a new family; but these powers could never pass to a woman, and every woman, of whatever age, must be under somebody's legal control. Her father dying, she was still subject

caste, she will behave amiss." But this authority, which still exists in India, is not merely conjugal. The husband exerts it simply as being the wife's legal guardian. If the woman be unmarried or a widow, she must be as rigorously held under some other guardians

e. By law "the woman passed in manum viri, that is, she became the daughter of her husband." All she had became his, and after his death she was retained in the same strict tutelage by any guardians his will might appoint. Afterwards, to soften this rigid bond, the woman was regarded in law as being temporarily deposited by her family with her husband

It would have seemed to an ancient Roman a matter of course that a woman should, all her life long, obey the guardians set over her person. It still seems to many people a matt

ly, we could easily leave each to its appropriate sphere; but when we see the chrysalis open, and the butterfly come half out of it, we know that soone

AN

in joke than in earnest, he said, "She must be perfectly ignorant, and a bigot: she must know nothing, and belie

y that it had always been the habit of women to ask that question of some man, and to rest easily satisfied with the answer. They have generally called, as my friend wished, from

at his discretion. At any given moment, so well was his interpretation received, that it stood for absolute right. In Rome a woman, married or single, could not testify in court; in the middle a

r." But we find throughout, that, as Emerson said of another class of reasoners, "Their two is not the real two; their four is not the real four." We find di

f two and twenty or thereabouts!" the hero sighs for a fine young idiot of similar age. When the hero is successful in his search and wooing, the novelist sometimes mercifully removes the young woman early, like David Copperfield's Do

bserver Ste

position of a lamb.' Nothing produces more impression on fools who are looking out for wives. I think I see the in

l speaking in the

ble. The ignorance of women spoils for the human race this magnificent opportunity: and love, at the utmost, in

's bill, whether the order be given by a man or a woman; and it is the same in all affairs or investments, financial or moral. We shall one day learn that with laws, customs, and pub

tendhal (Henri Beyle). Paris, 186

EL HO

s that he must also contribute some service; so he walls up the hole closely, giving only room for the point of the female's bill to protrude. Until the eggs are hatched, she is thenceforth confined to he

s visible in the rear, beyond the reach of eyes from any neighboring house. In this cheerful abode, I was assured, a Portuguese lady had been for many years confined by her jealous husband. It was long since any n

e wife's person, no habeas corpus can avail against him. The hornbill household is based on a strict application of the old common law. A Hindoo household was a hornbill household: "a woman, of whatsoever age, should never be mistress of her own actions," said the code of

d children. For them this African household is a sufficient model. The wife is "a home body." The husband is "a good provider." These are honest people, and have a right to speak. The hornbill theory is only dishones

t the mock

ances and the

or the hornbill standard of domesticity proceeds. Put them to the test, and give them the

s, filling the summer boughs with color and with song, are as truly domestic in the freedom of their airy nest as the poor hornbills who ignorantly make home into a dungeon. And certainly each new generation of orioles, spreading free wings from that pendent cradle, affords a happier illustration of judicious nur

ARD FOR

one mile to the barber's shop," and "Take the cars to the dining-room,"--a lady came to the rescue, and bravely defended woman suffrage. It seems that the original cartoon depicted in the corner a pretty family scene, representing father, mother, and children seated happily together, with the melancholy motto, "Nevermore, nevermore!" And when the correspondent, Mrs.

nt of her husband," was resisted as tending to endanger the family. The proposal that the wife should control her own earnings, so that her husband should not have the right to collect th

t receive a blow, from the time when wives should be liable to know more Greek than their husbands. Yet the marriage relation has withstood these innovatio

t their husbands' political opinions, why should they dispute about them? The mere suggestion of a difference deep enough to quarrel for, implies a real difference of convictions or interests, and indicates that there ought to be an independent representation of each; unless we fall back, once for all, on the common-law tradition that man and wife are o

is possible in a republic, fades into insignificance before this more powerful dividing influence. Yet we leave all this great explosive force in unimpeded operation,--at any moment it may be set in action, in any one of those "pretty family scenes" which "Puck" depicts,--while we are solemnly warned against admitting the compa

thorn in my side than an echo," said Emerson of friendship; and the same is true of married life. It is the echoes, the nonentities, of whom men grow tired; it is the women with some flavor of in

in all: cross h

epth of an unequalled

ike a fool: the

serpents and harmless as doves, may well ponder. It takes two things different to make a

AS ECO

should say that women, from the very habit of their lives, are led to be more particular about details, and more careful as to small economies. The very fact that they handle less money tends to this. When they are told to spend money, as they often are by loving or ambitious husbands, they no doubt do it freely: they have naturally more taste than men, and quite as much love of luxury. In some instances in this country they spend money recklessly and wickedly,

his scanty pay, and even saved a little money from it. Everybody knows such instances. We hear men denounce the extravagance of women, while those very men spend on wine and cigars, on clubs and horses, twice what their wives spend on their toilet. If the wives are economical, the husbands perhaps urge them on to greater lavishness. "Why do you not dress like Mrs. So-

I was surprised to find that it was cramped for money, though large subscriptions were said to have been made to it. On inquiry it appeared that these ladies, having pledged themselves for four years, had divided the amount received into four parts, and were resolutely limiting themselves, for the first year, to one quarter part of what had been subscribed. No board of men would have done so. Any board of men would have allowed far more than a quarter of the sum for the fir

e waiters at any fashionable restaurant will tell you that what is a cheap dinner for a man would be a dear dinner for a woman. Yet after all, the test is not in any particular class of expenditures, but in the business-like habit. Men are of course more business-like in large combinations

INCLUD

nd, she simply seated herself at the piano, and sang "Kathleen Mavourneen" with such thrilling sweetness that the young Irish girl who was setting the supper-table in the next room forgot all her plates and teaspoons, threw herself into a chair, put her apron over her face, and sobbed as if her heart would break. All the training of Adelaide Phillipps--her magnificent voice, her stage ex

areer will illustrate the infirmities of genius, and whom no training can convince that two and two make four. But the general fact is sure. As no sensible man would seriously prefer for

estimony of women who had studied Greek, and were only the more womanly for the study. They are worth the opinions of a million half-developed beings like the Duchess de Fontanges, who was described as being "as beautiful as an angel and as silly as a goose." The greater includes the l

towards equalizing the opportunities of men and women meets with resistance, of course; but every step, as it is accomplished, leaves men still men, and women still women. And as we who heard Adelaide Phillipps felt that she had never had a better tribute to her musical genius than this young Irish girl's tears, so the true woman will feel that all her college training for instance, if she has it, may have been well invested, e

ri Beyle): "Les plaisirs du grand monde n'en

ARTNE

ancial and business relations, may be

rrespondence, another receives and pays out the money. The latter is not necessarily the head of the firm. Perhaps his place could be more easily filled than some of the other posts. Nevertheless, more money passes through his hands than through those of all the others put together. Now, should he, at the year

is constantly done by men in the copartnership of marriage, and is the

e after her demise; and during the few months' interval before his second marriage they say approvingly, "He was always a generous man to his folks! He was a good provider!"

g is earned by the farm, she does her distinct and important share of the earning. But it is not necessary that she should do

If it requires patience and labor to do the outside work, no less is required inside. The duties of the household are as hard as the duties of the shop or office. If the wife took her husband's work for a day, she would probably be glad to return to her own. So would the husband if he undertook

especially hard that it is distinguished from all others by the name "labor." If it does not earn money, it is because it is not to be measured in money, while it exists,--nor to be replaced by money, if lost. If a business man loses his partner, he can obtain another: and a man, no doubt, may take a second wife; but he cannot procure for his children a seco

y?" When I read in "Scribner's Monthly" an article deriding the right to representation of the Massachusetts women who pay two millions of tax on one hundred and thirty-two million dollars of property,--asserting that they produced nothing of it; that it

SPONSI

aw, to make a general provision that in each case one partner should be supreme and the other subordinate. In many cases, by the terms of the copartnership there are limitations on one side and special privileges on the other,--marriage settlements, as it were; but the general law of copartnership is ba

position of women. And though the English common law has been, in this respect, greatly modified and superseded by statute law; yet, when it comes to an argument on woman suffrage, it is constantly this same tradition to which men and even women habitually appeal,--the necessity of a single head to the domestic partnersh

the principal objects in which

er by law or by contract, in the hand

eral points, not bearing

the family must be put by law and by morals into the hands

d on by no other method. How is it, then, that when we come to what is called technically and especially the "business"

s merely one of interest: it is based on no sentiments, sealed by no solemn pledge, enriched by no home associations, cemented by no new generation of young life. If a relation like this is found to work well on terms of equality,--so well that a large part of the business of the world is don

d easy demarcation, with which the claim of suffrage makes no necessary interference. It may require angry discussion to decide which of two business partners shall buy, and which shall sell; which shall keep the books, and which do the active work, and so on; but all this is usually settled in married life by the natural order of things. Even in regard to the management of children, where collision is likely to come, if anywhere, it can commonly be settled by that happy formula of Jean Paul's, t

G FOR

s, that it should come to the wife regularly, so that she should no more have to make a special request for it than her husband would have to ask her for a dinner. This lady's own husband was, as I happened to know, of a most generous disposition, was devotedly attached to her, and denied her nothing. She herself was a most accurate and careful manager. There was everything in the household to make the financial arrangements flow smoothly. Yet

ved to be very disagreeable to apply for money: it made every dollar seem a special favor; it brought up all kinds of misgivings, as to whether he could spare it without inconvenience, whether he really thought my services worth it, and so on. My employer was a thoroughly upright and noble man, and I was much attached to him. I do not know that he ever refused or demurred when I made my request. The annoyance was simply i

, and wish to protect at all hazards. The very fact that a husband is generous; the very fact that his income is limited,--these may bring in conscience and gratitude to increase the restraining influence of pride, and make the wife less willing to ask money of such a husband than if he were a rich man or a mean one. The only dignified position in which a man can place his wife is to treat her at least as well as he would treat a housekeeper, and g

their wives worked hard,--or from farmers, who worked hard, and made their wives work harder. Even in cases where the wife has no direct part in the money-making, the indirect part she performs, if she takes faithful charge of her household, is so essential, so beyond all compensation in money, that it is an utter shame and impertinence in the husband when he speaks of "giving"

D AND MO

ry thoughtful person sees that the cares of motherhood, though not the whole duty of woman, are an essential part of that duty, wherever they occur; and that no theory of womanly life is good for anything which undertakes to leave out the cradle. Even her school education is based on this fact, were it only on Stendhal's theory that the sons of a woman who reads Gibbon and Schiller will be more likely to show talent than those of one who only

t we often hear that she should do just this. What is all the public sphere of woman, it is said,--what good can she do by all her speaking a

orld gains nothing. In sacrificing her own work to her child's, moreover, she exchanges a present good for a prospective and merely possible one. If she does this through overwhelming love, we can hardly blame her; but she cannot justify it before reason and

s," or Mrs. Stowe had laid aside "Uncle Tom's Cabin," or Florence Nightingale had declined to go to the Crimea, on the ground that a woman's true work was through the nursery, and they must all wait for tha

the better. But when a great opportunity offers for direct aid to the world, we have no right to transfer that wo

tion to generation, or why it is better to rear a serviceable human being than to be one in person. Carry the theory consistently out: if each mother must simply rear her daughter that she in turn may rear somebody else, then from ea

eplied that, as one great act may be worth many smaller ones, so all the numerous children and grandchildren of a woman like Lucretia Mott may not collectively equal the usefulness of herself alone. If she, like many women, had held it

st women still try to keep up their interest in society, in literature, in the world's affairs--were it only for their children's sake. Multitudes of women will never be mothers; and those more fortunate may find even the usefulness of their motherhood surpassed by what they do in other ways. If maternal duties

N POINT

go. His writings, like his presence, show a most liberal spirit; and perhaps no man has ever presented the more advanced evangelical theology of Germany in so attractive a ligh

pressed his opinion that "the Spirit of Christ" was not here. Being still further pressed to illustrate his meaning, he gave, as instances of this deficiency, not the Crédit Mobilier or the Tweed scandal, but such alarming facts as the following. He seriously declared that, on more than one occasion, he had heard an American married woman say to her husband, "Dear, will you bring me my shawl?" and the husband had brough

it would undoubtedly be more pleasing to see every wife so eager to receive her husband that she would naturally spring from her chair and run to kiss him in the doorway, yet, where such devotion was wanting, it would be but fair to inquire which of the two had done the more fatiguing day's work, and to whom the easy-chair justly be

f God, the same is my brother and my sister and my mother," would have objected to any mutual and equal service between man and woman. If we assume that two human beings have immortal souls, there can be no want of dignity to either in serving t

le as that of a lover-like husband bringing a shawl for his wife, I should say, Let the immigration from German

LESS

the mediaeval Council of Ma?on, and the position taken that woman was no more entitled to rank as human, because she brought forth men, than the garden-earth could take rank with the fruit and flowers it bore. The same view was revived b

are not hers: because she produces children for us; we do not yield any to he

female; just as, in tracing the seed of some rare fruit, the gardener takes no genealogical account of the garden where it grew. This view is now seldom expressed in full force: but one remnant of it is to be found in the lingerin

in leaving children to the republic. On the contrary, the rule has rather seemed to be, that the most eminent men have left their bequest of s

one of Drake, Cromwell, Monk, Marlborough, Peterborough, or Nelson; not one of Strafford, Ormond, or Clarendon; not one of Addison, Swift, or Johnson; not one of Walpole, Bolingbroke, Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Grattan, or Canning; not one of Bacon, Locke, Newton, or Davy; not one

dren to the world, but rendered it no other service. Lord Bacon says that "he that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the

e to their country except by giving it children? If it be folly and shame, as I think, to belittle and decry the dignity and worth of motherhood, as some are said to do, it is no less folly, and shame quite as great, to deny the grand and patriotic service of many wom

ON OF CRUELT

now advanced to a similar society for the benefit of children. Whe

if it was true that under Rhode Island laws a husband might, by his last will, bequeath his child away from its mother, so that she might, i

ll in a moment of anger, and have neglected to alter it. At any rate, he is dead, and the mother is living. The guardian whom he appoints may turn out a very malicious man, and

o make them understand what the law is; but they do not. People who

her tongue on the subject, and I hope she will not. The ac

ied women, shall have a right to appoint by his will a guar

ing deference to her wishes, although he could, in case of gross neglect or abuse, be removed by the court, and another guardian appointed. There is not a line of

er laws like these. There lies before me a letter,--not from Rhode Island,--written by a widowed mother who suffers daily tortures, even while in possessi

ers in our next legislature to free the State record from the shameful sto

ed. But out of my keen comprehension of this great wrong, notwithstanding my submission for myself, my whole soul is stirred,--for my child, who is a little woman; for all

hall I fully trust." I wish that mothers who dwell in sheltered and happy homes would try to bring to their minds the condition of a mother whose possession of her only child rests upon the "promise" of a comparative stran

ed, till it now stands thus: The father is authorized to appoint a guardian by will;

except that the father of the minor, if living, and in case of his death the mother, they being respectively competent to

e once took place in a Boston court-room, where children were forced away from their mother by the officers, under this statute, in spite of her tears and theirs; and this when no sort of personal charge had been made against her. This could not now

Statutes R.I., c

lic Statutes, ch