We have already said that it would be an anomaly for any portion of the community, who are divested of the right of suffrage, to be governed by just and equitable laws. Hence the unjust laws by which women are governed. A woman, in her husband's life-time, loses her identity; she is not known in law, as an individual, except in criminal cases. She cannot transact any business in her own name. If she has been appointed an executrix before marriage, and has taken the oath of office, and is discharging its duties, whenever she becomes a wife, she is considered dead in the eyes of the law, and every person knows that dead people cannot perform any of the duties of the living, and hence at new executor must be appointed. The legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least it is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing. Laws framed in a semi-barbarous age, under the feudal system, when recourse was always had to the sword for protection, still continue to govern women. In the husband the wife still lives, moves, and has her being. There could not be a law devised better calculated to crush the energies and to degrade an individual, and which is, at the same time, a more arrogant usurpation of the prerogatives of God.

Some women sustain a grievous injury by being incapable of making legal contracts, or of owning property, which they acquired by their own industry-all belongs to the husband, perhaps a spendthrift and drunkard. In this case, women cannot hold in their own hand, what would enable them to pursue any business for the support of themselves, and worse than fatherless children.

A law is enacted by the corporation of New York city securing that property to the wife which she has invested in materials for the purpose of pursuing her business, so that it is not liable to be seized for the husband's debts. The interest of the community is promoted by this regulation as well as that of the family. By this means the wife is enabled to support the family, which otherwise might have become a public charge.

As far as husband and wife are concerned, they constitute mystically one. They should be one in interest and affec

tion. The wife has not power over her own body, but the husband, and likewise also the husband has not power over his own body, but the wife. 1 Cor. vii. 4. But they both retain individuality; he still continues the same immutable man, and she the same immutable woman, as before marriage, and owes important duties to both God and man in that capacity, the same as before marriage. "Two are better than one." And, as individuals, both are to stand before the bar of God, to be judged for the deeds done in the body. And they have individually to stand before the legal tribunals of their country in all criminal cases; consequently there can be no merging of the one into the other. If the husband is the wife's representative, let him represent her in a state prison, or on the gallows; but so long as she is accountable for her actions, she ought to have a voice in all human laws that govern her actions.

The apostle says the husband is the head of the wife, and tells her to be obedient to him in that relation, therefore that constitutes him her political despot, and annihilates hershe is no longer capable of using the pronoun I, myself. Why does the apostle tell her to be obedient to the husband? That he may nourish and cherish her; and he tells the husband that he that loves his wife loves himself. Has the enactment of oppressive laws to govern her in her life, liberty, and the holding of property any tendency to nourish and cherish her, or to cheer and gladden her heart? Does it wipe the tear of sorrow from the widow's cheek, and make her heart leap for joy, to have her property wrested from her, and a portion of it dealt out to her as if she were a pensioner on the bounty of the legal tribunals? Is this the way husbands manifest that they love their wives as themselves? We rejoice to say that even paupers in our alms-houses (males) who have all their wants supplied without their own exertions do not lose their individuality. They retain the right of suffrage. They have not to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, even though they have been reduced to that situation by their own profligacy. We have no intention of going into a special detail as to the legal disabilities which women sustain, nor are we acquainted with all their legal disabilities in the different states of this union. But

we will mention one instance of the good and equitable laws by which our kind representative, man, governs us.

From the statutes of the state of Ohio, as revised and amended, it appears that if a man die intestate, the law steps in and treats the widow as if she were non compos mentis-her property is dealt out to her as if she were a salaried clerk, thus adding insult to injury to one who is already overwhelmed in sorrow. Her household furniture consists in "beds, bedding, and bedsteads, one table, six chairs, six knives and forks, six plates, six tea-cups and saucers, one sugar-dish, one milk-pot, one tea-pot, and twelve spoons.' Think of this, perhaps eight or ten in a family to have every article dealt out to them by sixes. A very moderately furnished table would need six plates to place the food on. No pitchers, no tumblers, no bowls;-but need we go on to specify the wants? Who does not see that they are numerous? There are many inveterate slave-holders whose self-respect would lead them to have their negro-quarters furnished in better style. But although our wise and just legislators may appear sordid as regards the furniture allotted to the widow, their munificence displays itself to her personally. In their unbounded generosity, they have enacted, that she shall possess her own clothes and ornaments. Only think of it! A statute must be passed to invest a woman with the ownership of her own clothing and ornaments! She had no legal claim on them before. Is this the person whose duty her Creator says "is to clothe the naked and feed the hungry," when she does not own what clothes her own person? She feed the hungry! "She eats her own bread by weight, and drinks her water by measure.' Is this the person who in the character of queen is to be a "nursing mother to the church?" What means has she to nourish the church?-or what emblem of sovereignty is she adorned with? Her head is not "crowned with honour or with dignity." She is not adorned even as the grass of the field. The lilies toil not, neither do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these,"--but she has no raiment she can call her own. She is only a poor pensioner at the caprice of her master's bounty. A slave cannot own any thing. The poor oppressed widow will not have much need of fine clothing or ornaments. Her oppres

sors have not supplied her out of her own property with any mode of conveyance from home, unless she takes her feet for it; although she should live in a remote country place, neither horse, saddle, or carriage is allowed her. Some women are very much disappointed and chagrined when their saddles are wrested from them, which perhaps not twelve months before they had brought new from the parental domicil, or had earned by their own industry. There are few men who have assisted in dealing out the widow's apportionment of her property who have not felt that they were doing something oppressive and unjust. The law made it their duty, and that was sufficient to satisfy their scruples, as it was a woman they were thus treating. Had it been a man, (if white,) their indignation would have swollen to overflowing. This statute professes to be framed for the protection of children in their inheritance, lest the widow should marry again, and the property fall into the hands of the succeeding husband.

Who has the framing of the laws that create the husband the owner of the wife's property? Might not the property come into the husband's hands through the wife? Is there no fear that a man would marry again, and dispossess her children of what belonged to their mother? Does woman lack parental affection so much more than man, that she must be bound by oppressive laws, lest she should rob her children or mismanage her property? Notwithstanding all that is done to crush woman's energies and enterprise, and all the obstacles which laws throw in her way, many widows have raised a numerous family respectably, and added to the estate after the death of their husbands; and many women have reared their children decently by their own industry, when a father, under the same circumstances, could not have done it. It is a mere pretence to say, that those laws which " oppress and vex the widow," are made for the protection of children. When there are no children to provide for, and a man dies intestate, his relatives come in as legal heirs to the two-thirds of all the real estate, and the widow is only entitled to the interest of the other third, the same as the widow who has children, as it respects real estate. If they even had the third at their own disposal, it would be a great advantage in many instances; but there is a spy set

over them, as to the management of the third, to take cognizance of it, lest they waste and destroy it. If it is adjudged that they are wasting it, they forfeit their claim to dower. A high-handed piece of despotism, truly, to watch a woman lest she should destroy her own property! The husband the wife's protector, indeed! Does he protect her in her rights? No, truly, he keeps her from her rights; and the law he has a voice in making, deals more unjustly with the wife of his bosom than with any other relative! All children, male or female, inherit the same amount of property; and, in case there is but one child, male or female, it will inherit two-thirds of the property, whilst the mother is entitled only to one-third of the interest; and, in case he has no children, perhaps a remote relative will come in and inherit two-thirds absolutely of his real estate, and the other third at the death of the widow.

Take an old couple, who, by their joint labour and frugality, have amassed a bare competency; the wife has an equal right to it with the husband, having equally contributed to making it. The whole is barely sufficient for the comfortable maintenance of her old age. The one-third of the estate is wholly incompetent to support an aged, frail person; or the widow may be incapable of supporting herself, in consequence of other disabilities; or whether she is able to support herself or not, is it not a high-handed piece of injustice and despotism to wrest her property from her and give it to another, who was not in any respect instrumental in acquiring it? A distant relative taking precedence of the widow, perhaps a female, thus liable to every objection that can be urged against the wife being the sole possessor of the property, which common sense and justice say she should be. We have known a widow, in consequence of her husband's relatives taking two-thirds of her property, having to hire out for her support. In that situation, we know she could not receive more for her labour than would barely support her when in health, for the customs of society have made such a vast disproportion between the wages of male and female, that it operates most oppressively on the labouring class of females. A man receives double the wages for the same amount of labour, and the same kind of labour, although a woman may do it equally as well. These matters call loudly for reform.

་