I am no advocate of the practices of the 'strong-minded women,'
who hold their conventions and public meetings, who unsex themselves
by mounting the forum, and, throwing off the retiring modesty of the
true woman, seek to secure notoriety at the price of popular contempt.
But there are evils which bear heavily, too heavily, upon the women
even of this country, and which, for the credit of the civilization of
the age, should be corrected. As calm-minded, philanthropic men, we,
the American people, should look into this subject, and, regardless of
jeer and scoff, do what justice, humanity, and the right demand of us,
in regard to some of the social and legal inequalities between the
sexes, pertaining to the married state."
"It is one of the mysteries of our system of jurisprudence," replied
Spalding, "that while everything else is on the move, while progress
is written in letters of living light upon all other things, that
remains stationary--at least in a comparative sense. The world moves
on, civilization advances, science and the arts stride forward, but
the law stands still. A principle which may have been somewhat
changed, modified, bent, if you please, into an adaptation to the
exigencies of the present, and a fitness for the changed circumstances
of the times in which we live, is suddenly thrown back into its old
position by the exhumation of some 'decision' from the dust of ages,
made by some judge away back in the olden times, resurrected by the
research of some antiquarian lawyer, who loves to delve among the
rubbish of past generations.
Pages:
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246