135 THE RIGHT OF WOMAN. HUMANKIND are by nature equal: equal in respect of their rights, which no circumstances can alienate. For what reason is Woman deprived of her independence? On what plea can the advocate of the universal rights of Man reject the equal claim of Woman?-of her, the purer, the gentler, the more disinterested, more ready in apprehension, more patient in endurance, and enduring far more; equally susceptible of all that sublimes or ennobles our common nature; and inferior in nothing save muscular force: even now, crippled, caged and chained, the good angel of life; and endowed with almost inconceivable power of rendering earth a paradise, were she free and the friend, instead of the slave of man. has made the more beautiful the slave. It is time that those who call themThat one poor superiority of brute force selves the worshippers of reason, should prove the earnestness and consistency of their devotion. We demand a recognition of the equality of man and woman: We demand that women should possess all social and political rights that are possessed, or ought to be possessed, by men: that they shall be, not tolerated, (for who has a right to tolerate any thing?) but justified, in assuring an independent existence, in possessing property, and in the exercise of self-control; that in no case they shall be the property of men; that the unloving shall never be compelled to live together, nor the loving be compulsorily separated. We assert the great principle that the sexes were made to minister to each other's happiness. One was not made inferior, to subserve the domineering selfishness of the other; but BOTH SEXES ARE NATURALLY EQUAL, THOUGH OF DIFFERENT ABILITY. We contend that the present inequality, more particularly the Law of Marriage-which merges a woman's individuality in that of her husband, making her his property; which, consequently, prohibits her, except under peculiar evasive circumstances, from enjoying property, even her own earnings; which, worse than all, prevents reasonable freedom of divorce-is unjust and productive of immorality. There are few who do not acknowledge the present evil: yet is an alteration opposed, on the ground that "there is not proof that a change would better the condition of humanity." At any rate, it could not make that condition worse. Prostitution is rife in all classes of society: whether scorned, condemned, abused, and outlawed, among the miserable vagrants who traffic in disease and degradation, for the very means of life, in the streets of most christian cities; or legalized and priest-hallowed in the formal wanton, or passionless prude, who sells herself for an estate or a title, and blushes not at her infamy. No conceivable change can make the general intercourse of the sexes more mercenary, more beastlike, more immoral than it is. It were wise, then, to embrace any change, even though the benefit were uncertain. When we are dangerously ill, do we require proof of the virtue of the course prescribed, before we will essay any remedy? Do we take no means of ameliorating our condition, because we are not certain of the efficacy of the offered means? We ask, will any man, not utterly heartless or insensate, refuse to assist any change from the present evil system, while there is the remotest chance of benefit? Until it shall be decisively proved that no good can by any possibility accrue from an alteration, will any but an idiot, or the most selfish, unresistingly allow this universal rule of misery? Doubtless it is a very desirable thing that they, who live together, should love one another; that their love should endure, rendering the happiness of the united a lasting possession. They who experience this happiness need no penal laws, nor idle ceremonies, nor idler oaths, nor impertinent intervention of strangers, to induce them to hold fast the blessing. But all marriages are not so sanctified. There are instances in which persons are united without having obtained sufficient knowledge of each other's character. Why should they be bound together when the mistake shall be discovered? A man marries a woman (or a woman marries a man: it matters not in which way it is expressed,) whom he thinks a suitable partner. He finds out, in more or less time, that she is not a help meet for him. To force him to fulfil his part of the ill-judged contract were as absurd as it would be to compel him to fulfil an unintentional engagement with a woman fraudulently substituted in the place of her he loved. Even such things have been: but, are they defensible? Error is not necessarily crime. Why should it be arbitrarily punished? Are not its natural consequences sufficient? Besides, the Church and Law declare the marriage contract to be null, if there is physical impediment. Is moral incapacity of less consequence to any but "brute beasts that have no understanding?" Only with the clerical expositors of their own marriage-service. A man loves a woman, believing her to be amiable. He asserts his love in the hearing of the community. It may not be his actual language, but his thought speaks thus-"I love an amiable woman." But, the woman is not amiable: Then his declaration falls to the ground: he is free. Or, if she is amiable at the time of their union, but alters afterwards:-The desire of his love remains the same; but the love is unsatisfied, is widowed; he has lost that which he loved; why should the twain continue together? He loved an amiable woman; he vowed ever to love an amiable woman; (though it is rather presumptuous so to predicate of even our own consistency:) She, who was that woman, is changed; he does not love the unamiable; they are strangers to each other: let them not quarrel; but let them, for peace' sake, depart on their separate ways! If it shall be said, "he engaged to love a certain person for better or for worse"-what then? was not the bargain for mutual happiness? The terms of the engagement have not been complied with the engagement is null and void. "Whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder!" is objected: God never joined the unloving. He joineth the loving let no man sunder them! Neither dare to compel the junction of those whom God hath sundered-the unloving: they are no helps meet for each other. It is not infrequent that marriage is brought about by fraud; that one party is the victim of the other. Though we should allow it to be just to punish the erring the unintentionally deceived-with unnecessary consequences, yet surely it cannot be just to afflict also the innocent and abused one? What! when late and poor redress is demanded, shall we make ourselves accomplices of the wrong-doer, and punish the injured?—We have argued on the ground of only one party being dissatisfied. What shall we say, if the union is hateful to both? "Live together as beasts, loathing yourselves and loathsome to the Spirit of Truth; live together, for the procreation of much evil and no good; stir not from the prison-house of your hate!" shall this be decreed? What! when the Priest at the altar, in the name of the Law, in the name of God, has declared that "the holy estate of matrimony is God's ordinance for mutual society, help and comfort?" How can the unloving fulfil this? Is the Hell of contention, or falsehood, a "holy estate"? Is it "God's ordinance"? Why oppress ye my people with burthens which none can bear?-But, "Public decency will be offended!" "The delicacy of the respectable portion of society will be shocked!" Better outrage even the sensitiveness of virtue than linger even a day in the infamy of an union unhallowed by Love!-"And shall the separated marry again during each other's life-time?" Why not, as well as after the death of either? What are they to each other more than the dead? We have said before-Error is no crime: why should they be punished any further? But "the poor children; what will become of them, if their parents separate; how shall they be educated; how shall they be taken due care of?" What will become of them if their disagreeing parents do not separate? How are they now educated by the chained-together quarrellers? Will the display of their parents' mutual aversion and consequent suffering, of the father's tyranny, or the mother's hypocrisy or slavishness, of the daily injury, recrimination, and ill-temper, be the best possible education for the children of that home of unhappiness? Will they learn truth and love from the constrained civility or ill-concealed loathing of the compelled yoke-fellows? Is it a desirable education for the yet unvitiated, to see více thus sanctified as a duty, and to dwell beneath the deadly influence of those in whose lair Truth is not? Or, are the shameless practisers of prostitution fitting preceptors for infancy?In most cases there is a more direct answer to this (often pretended) fear of sacrificing the children. A man and woman, having been some time married, desire to part. They are tired of each other's company; or, only one is tired -the other soon will be. Why should they not separate! "They have one child." Let us even suppose that the child must be morally ruined-sacrificed, in consequence of the peaceable and mutually-respecting separation of its parents: Ought they rather to remain together, rendering each other miserable, perhaps loathing themselves, in order that they may have some five or six more children to share the wretched education of the firstborn? Is there justice in this sacrifice to Moloch? Is there common sense? Cannot the Apostles of the Establishment expound this great mystery? Will none of the surpliced meddlers with morality expatiate on the unrighteousness of sacrificing two for a very poor chance of saving one? It is not always that the children of the divided would be deserted by both their parents. Some faith may be placed in those who have sufficient good sense and good feeling to discontinue a disgusting connection. Shall it be objected, that freedom of divorce would degenerate into licenciousness? We have before shown that it would only separate the unloving. Love cannot be forced. They, who are no more than the mere animal, would of course act as such: Are they virtuous now? Ask of the thousands that die nightly on the thresholds of our respectable citizens ! There is one incessant Wail roaming through the streets of Christendom, the cry of the agony of abused womanhood-and men fear lest they should become licencious! "There is one objection to keeping a woman;" said a reverend gentleman, the father of a family, to a young friend who preferred that course to the worst profligacy-"you may become too fond of her." The very connection naturally induces affection. It does so, even now, despite the accustomed heartlessness. The continual association begets the need of its own continuance. It is proved by legislative experience,* that the liberty of change would be seldom abused; that, both sexes, knowing they had no tie upon each other's affection, save that of desert, would study to gain that hold, instead of depending, as now, on penal regulations and the fettering of a false shame. We have said but little of religious marriage-ceremonies, which are assumed to be sacred and sanctifying, and our own country's (it might be difficult to say why) more so than any other. The most strenuous opposition to a natural-and, consequently, reasonable and right-system of conduct in the mutual relations of the sexes, proceeds from those who, setting aside the laws of nature, regard the marriage rite, as by law established, to be indispensable for conferring morality on the connection between man and woman; who look on natural children as conceived in sin, and born in iniquity; who deny that any enter legitimately into this moral world without a purchased passport from the powers that be, temporal or spiritual. To what amounts their limited virtue, where stands their reverence, when marriage, by the law of the land, is a civil ordinance, and divorce no crime, or, at the worst, a venial offence, for which an indulgence may be bought of the heads of the church and law. If there is immorality in the marriage of one divorced, can an act of parliament render it moral, or why does it allow it, with the consent too of the right reverend bishops? If it is not immoral, why may not any, who are so disposed, divorce and marry again? By what right does a certain number of men, not the most pure-minded or correct in conduct, arrogate the allowance of sin, or of that which is not sin? Either they allow evil, or they * In Zurich, Switzerland. forbid what is not evil: In neither case are they justified. But, the House of Lords, by sanctioning a single divorce and after-marriage, has, in fact, decreed the equity of most perfect liberty, and abrogated the compelled lifecontinuance of marriage against the will of either of the married. So far has the legislature virtually, though unwillingly, declared the equality of the sexes. Woman ceasing to be the property of man, a man and a woman living together would each retain absolute power over their own property. With the love-united this would be an union of interests. It would of course render those, who ceased to accord, perfectly independent of each other; and, as women possessed of rights would find duties and employments, prostitution for a maintenance would soon altogether cease. Woman is at present denied the free exercise of her powers, actually on the plea of incapacity. Is this endurable? Who that owes the beauty of home to women's love; who that in his sickness has felt the ministering of woman, or witnessed her fortitude under her own sufferings; who that has been indebted for the purest and noblest of his thoughts to woman's nurture or to woman's loveliness (which of us has not been so indebted?) dares say,-if sufficiently well-endowed to appreciate the debt-however high his self-esteem, that he thinks that woman his inferior? And be it borne in mind, that woman, like the black slave, has worked under the disadvantage of irons. How bears the law on this point?-A_girl_of eighteen may, in this and other countries be absolute arbitress of the destinies of millions; a girl of ordinary intellect, or of talents far below the average, may be the head of the executive, and hold a veto on all acts of legislation. Yet, if we speak of the equality of woman, we shall be taunted with, "What! a woman legislator?-she had better be mending her husband's stockings." Suppose she has no husband, no children; suppose too that her talents are actually capable of better application than that of counting stitches :-must she not apply them for the good of society, except it be domestically? If she have the genius of a legislator, and no ties of blood or affection to claim her consideration, shall she be prohibited from employing her talents where alone they can be rendered most profitable to the community? The case is extreme, but not extravagant. Principles embrace extremes. Was Mary Wollstonecraft, or is Frances Wright, less qualified for a legislator than the many young men, representing the interests of their own families, whose sole and fitting education has been under the tutelage of grooms or in college debaucheries? Would those highly endowed and high-minded women have made poorer senators than the Marquis of Londonderry and Mr. Gully, or even than Lords Melbourne and Russell? Could any woman enact more frivolous and absurd laws than have resulted from the "collective wisdom" of men?-the 658 who discovered, that horn-blowing in the streets of London, if perpetrated by men who travelled but ten miles, was a great nuisance, to be suppressed by all the wisdom and energy of Sovereign, Lords and Commons; but if perpetrated, in the same streets, by men who travelled eleven miles, that it became no nuisance, and merited the special patronage of the Senate. Could woman dwindle below this manly littleness? In fine, is intellect to be useless, or not useful to the full extent of its capacity, whenever it is the possession of a woman? and is this to be considered the best means of advancing the improvement of humanity. If the natural powers of man, intellectual or moral, are greater than those of woman, what need is there of the many artificial restrictions which now bar the way of woman's improvement; the absurd and fatal prejudices which call that improper in woman, which is deemed proper in man; which appoint a different morality for man and woman, creating an opposition of aims instead of confirming the natural identity of their interests? Surely, if man is so much superior to woman, he may, without disparagement to his wisdom, be generous enough to throw no obstacles in the way of the progression of womankind; he can have no jealousy of his inferiors: but if, as we have before shown, he has no superiority but that of physical force, wherein the ape excels him, let him, for shame's sake, waive the brute's prerogative, if he would not in all things acknowledge the law of force, in opposition to the equality of Nature-the equality of rights, which may not be destroyed by any inequality of condition! O Men! if you have any love for woman, or for yourselves, crush not those who can render you happy, independently of whose happiness you cannot be happy! In extending their sphere of utility, you increase their power of blessing, you secure your own good. If you would have your children good, and great and happy, debase not those from whom they must receive their best instruction! Let me not to the marriage of true minds That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; Whose worth's unknown, altho' his height be taken. I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Shakspere. LIFE OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, the Vindicator of the Rights of Woman, was born on the 27th of April, 1759. There is some doubt as to whether she was born in London or at a farm upon Epping Forest, in Essex, where she passed the first five years of her life. Her father was a man of some property, which he diminished by amusing himself with farming. In the early part of her life she was subjected to much rigour: continual restraint in the most trivial matters; unconditional submission to orders which, as a mere child, she discovered to be unreasonable; all the petty vexations and ill influences of home tyranny. The superiority of her mind surmounted all this. Her physical education, however, was better cared for. In 1768, her father removed to a farm near Beverley, in Yorkshire; where the family remained till she was more than fifteen years old. Her school education passed during this period -little to her advantage. She then removed with her family to London; and again, after a few months, into Wales; but returned to London after little more than a year. In 1778, home being irksome, and she desirous of providing for herself, she accepted a situation as companion to a widow lady, at Bath; with whom she remained two years; and was then recalled home by the declining health of her mother. After her mother's death, she left the paternal roof, to depend upon her own resources. In 1783, in conjunction with a friend, and aided by her two younger sisters, she opened a day-school in Islington. She afterwards removed to Newington Green. Her partner was compelled by ill health to go to Lisbon. Mary Wollstonecraft's friendship induced her to neglect her school, that she might follow her thither. She only reached Lisbon a short time before her friend's death. On her return, |