"Do not the above citations clearly prove inequality? Are not the very letter and spirit of the marriage contract based on the idea of the supremacy of man as the keeper of woman's virtue—her sole protector and support? Out of marriage, woman asks nothing, at this hour, but the elective franchise. It is only in marriage that she must demand her right to person, children, property, wages, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How can we discuss all the laws and conditions of marriage, without perceiving its essential essence, end, and aim? Now, whether the institution of marriage be human or divine, whether regarded as indissoluble by ecclesiastical courts or dissoluble by civil courts, woman, finding herself equally degraded in each and every phase of it, always the victim of the institution, it is her right and her duty to sift the relation and the compact through and through, until she finds out the true cause of her false position. How can we go before the legislatures of our respective States and demand new laws, or no laws, on divorce, until we have some idea of what the true relation is?
"We decide the whole question of slavery by settling the sacred rights of the individual. We assert that man cannot hold property in man, and reject the whole code of laws that conflicts with the self-evident truth of the assertion.
"Again, I ask, is it possible to discuss all the laws of a relation, and not touch the relation itself?
"Yours respectfully,
"Elizabeth Cady Stanton."
The discussion on the question of marriage and divorce occupied one entire session of the convention, and called down on us severe criticisms from the metropolitan and State press. So alarming were the comments on what had been said that I began to feel that I had inadvertently taken out the underpinning from the social system. Enemies were unsparing in their denunciations, and friends ridiculed the whole proceeding. I was constantly called on for a definition of marriage and asked to describe home life as it would be when men changed their wives every Christmas. Letters and newspapers poured in upon me, asking all manner of absurd questions, until I often wept with vexation. So many things, that I had neither thought nor said, were attributed to me that, at times, I really doubted my own identity.
However, in the progress of events the excitement died away, the earth seemed to turn on its axis as usual, women were given in marriage, children were born, fires burned as brightly as ever at the domestic altars, and family life, to all appearances, was as stable as usual.
Public attention was again roused to this subject by the McFarland-Richardson trial, in which the former shot the latter, being jealous of his attentions to his wife. McFarland was a brutal, improvident husband, who had completely alienated his wife's affections, while Mr. Richardson, who had long been a cherished acquaintance of the family, befriended the wife in the darkest days of her misery. She was a very refined, attractive woman, and a large circle of warm friends stood by her through the fierce ordeal of her husband's trial.
Though McFarland did not deny that he killed Richardson, yet he was acquitted on the plea of insanity, and was, at the same time, made the legal guardian of his child, a boy, then, twelve years of age, and walked out of the court with him, hand in hand. What a travesty on justice and common sense that, while a man is declared too insane to be held responsible for taking the life of another, he might still be capable of directing the life and education of a child! And what an insult to that intelligent mother, who had devoted twelve years of her life to his care, while his worthless father had not provided for them the necessaries of life!
She married Mr. Richardson on his deathbed. The ceremony was performed by Henry Ward Beecher and Rev. O.B. Frothingham, while such men as Horace Greeley and Joshua Leavitt witnessed the solemn service. Though no shadow had ever dimmed Mrs. Richardson's fair fame, yet she was rudely treated in the court and robbed of her child, though by far the most fitting parent to be intrusted with his care.
As the indignation among women was general and at white heat with regard to her treatment, Miss Anthony suggested to me, one day, that it would be a golden opportunity to give women a lesson on their helplessness under the law—wholly in the power of man as to their domestic relations, as well as to their civil and political rights. Accordingly we decided to hold some meetings, for women alone, to protest against the decision of this trial, the general conduct of the case, the tone of the press, and the laws that made it possible to rob a mother of her child.
Many ladies readily enlisted in the movement. I was invited to make the speech on the occasion, and Miss Anthony arranged for two great meetings, one in Apollo Hall, New York city, and one in the Academy of Music, in Brooklyn. The result was all that we could desire. Miss Anthony, with wonderful executive ability, made all the arrangements, taking on her own shoulders the whole financial responsibility.
My latest thought on this question I gave in The Arena of April, 1894, from which I quote the following:
"There is a demand just now for an amendment to the United States Constitution that shall make the laws of marriage and divorce the same in all the States of the Union. As the suggestion comes uniformly from those who consider the present divorce laws too liberal, we may infer that the proposed national law is to place the whole question on a narrower basis, rendering null and void the laws that have been passed in a broader spirit, according to the needs and experiences, in certain sections, of the sovereign people. And here let us bear in mind that the widest possible law would not make divorce obligatory on anyone, while a restricted law, on the contrary, would compel many, marrying, perhaps, under more liberal laws, to remain in uncongenial relations.
"As we are still in the experimental stage on this question, we are not qualified to make a perfect law that would work satisfactorily over so vast an area as our boundaries now embrace. I see no evidence in what has been published on this question, of late, by statesmen, ecclesiastics, lawyers, and judges, that any of them have thought sufficiently on the subject to prepare a well-digested code, or a comprehensive amendment to the national Constitution. Some view it as a civil contract, though not governed by the laws of other contracts; some view it as a religious ordinance—a sacrament; some think it a relation to be regulated by the State, others by the Church, and still others think it should be left wholly to the individual. With this wide divergence of opinion among our leading minds, it is quite evident that we are not prepared for a national law.
"Moreover, as woman is the most important factor in the marriage relation, her enfranchisement is the primal step in deciding the basis of family life. Before public opinion on this question crystallizes into an amendment to the national Constitution, the wife and mother must have a voice in the governing power and must be heard, on this great problem, in the halls of legislation.
"There are many advantages in leaving all these questions, as now, to the States. Local self-government more readily permits of experiments on mooted questions, which are the outcome of the needs and convictions of the community. The smaller the area over which legislation extends, the more pliable are the laws. By leaving the States free to experiment in their local affairs, we can judge of the working of different laws under varying circumstances, and thus learn their comparative merits. The progress education has achieved in America is due to the fact that we have left our system of public instruction in the hands of local authorities. How different would be the solution of the great educational question of manual labor in the schools, if the matter had to be settled at Washington!
"The whole nation might find itself pledged to a scheme that a few years would prove wholly impracticable. Not only is the town meeting, as Emerson says, 'the cradle of American liberties,' but it is the nursery of Yankee experiment and wisdom. England, with its clumsy national code of education, making one inflexible standard of scholarship for the bright children of the manufacturing districts and the dull brains of the agricultural counties, should teach us a lesson as to the wisdom of keeping apart state and national government.
"Before we can decide the just grounds for divorce, we must get a clear idea of what constitutes marriage. In a true relation the chief object is the loving companionship of man and woman, their capacity for mutual help and happiness and for the development of all that is noblest in each other. The second object is the building up a home and family, a place of rest, peace, security, in which child-life can bud and blossom like flowers