The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-09-11

round OF toll and spoliation, until one or the
other may die. That this is not mere declama-
ton, three authentic instances of the exercise
of such marital rights are given in a certain
admirable, wise, and witty pamphlets recently
published; of which we will say no more in the
way OF criticism, than that is worthy of Sidney
Smith.
A widow, with small personal property
and three young children, was induced, by a
scoundrel lurking under the garb of preacher,
to marry him without a settlement. He then
threw Oh the mask, treated her and her children
most scandalously, and INDUCED in the most
disgraceful drunkenness and debauchery. Still, |
his career was so short, that when he sunk
under his excuses, the little property was not
seriously impaired, and the poor woman, though
again IN state of pregnancy, was not in actual
despair. In few days she was driven to mad
ness, when she discovered that this man, shortly
after the marriage, had made a WILL by which
ne nad cequeathed her little all to an illegiti-
mate child of his own"
A second case given is that of young girl
VINO married, somewhat against her fathers con-
sent, young man of Indifferent character.
her father died suddenly, without having made
will or settlement of any kind; and very short
| ly after, the husband, in a moment of drunken
fury, committed felonious assault on his un-
| happy wife. He was tried and convicted of the
| felony, and the property of the wretched wife,
which, upon its descending to her, was instant.
ly transferred by the law to him, became for
feited to the Crown, by reason of felony of
which she was not the perpetrator, but the VIC
| tim"
In the third case, the husband of a very de-
cent woman was convicted of crime in his own
family, too horrible to particularize. He was
sent to prison for three years. The wife removed
to distant part of the country, where, under
an assumed name, she supported herself and
her children in comfort, and was even enabled
to save out of her earnings. One evening, her
husband came suddenly to the house, infamed
with drink, and burning with evil passions. He
came in the name of the English law to claim
his marital rights over her person and her earn
ings, to take his place in the family whose viz
tue he had outraged and whose safety he had
endangered. Convicted of such horrible crime
as he had been, he was none the less lord and
master; the wife could none the more obtain a
release from him and his vice. He was gaoler
by right of English law; and she was his
prisoner by the fat of English bigotry.
But there is difference in properties, the
personal and the real-the first belongs to the
husband, the second to the heir.
If a wife die without children, her houses and
lands pass to her next male heir but if she
4
once, and both mother and babe then instantly
expire, they belong to her husband for life,
under the not very Ineligible title of Tenant
| by the Courtesy of England Consummate.
Should the babe live, the gaoler-marital is only
Tenant by the Courtesy of England Ichoate,
and has to give up possession on the boys
twenty first birthday. The sheep, oxen, Sevres
china, kid gloves, satin Shoes lace collars, gold
bracelets, breloques, chains, har-pins furniture,
| sd II
like articles, what is called personality, belong
unreservedly to the husband; who can pawn,
sell, or give them away, the instant the clergy
man has pronounced the marriage blessing
Now, what dc you say to these, as perquisites of
the gaoler-marital?
| Turning now from property TO divorce-what
do we find? A gaoler-marital may entertain
as many ladies lightoflove as he pleases. He
may support them out of his wifes property, he
may even endow them with that property after
his death, and leave his lawful lady and her
children to want and misery-and the wife has
no remedy. The relief of divorce was not in
stituted for her. Many have tried the question,
and almost all have been thrown. In an inf.
mite number of years, and out of millions of vic
| tins groaning for deliverance, only four have
obtained divorce. Cruelty, infdelity, vice, crime
desertion nothing that would seem to be natu
raj and common-sense breaking of the nuptial
bond, is allowed to stand as a legal severance
for her benefit. The wife must bear her chains
to the grave, though they eat into her very soul
she must submit to every species of wrong and
| tyranny-the law has no shield for her But
when a gaoler wishes to get rid of a prisoner
it is quite another thing 1t is in reality but
an affair of money. If he can afford the various
legal processes demanded by our wise laws he
| can be free tomorrow be his wife the most
virtuous lady in the land. If he chooses, he
can collide with some villain, whom he accuses
of being his wife's lover. The man does not
defend the action, and judgment is allowed to
60 by default. The villain s assessed in dam
ages which he may pay with one hand and re-
ceive with the other. We say, that all this may
happen if gaoler will the law does not pro-
vide against such a possibility. Tho accused
wife is not told of the time or manner of the
trial. She is not supposed to appear as a wit
ness, nor to defend herself by counsel The
action is not brought against her, but against
the lover, for damage alleged to be done
to the gaoler's property; the wife's existence
as wife or woman, Is ignored; she is only judged
and assessed by her monetary value, This is
the English law of divorce and English gentle
mems feelings on conjugal infdelty. And then
we ridicule the foreigners belief that we sell our
wives because we do not take them to market
with halter round their necks-at least, not
when we are in good society-and because We
| only receive money as manly manner of COM
pensation, when they have given their souls and
love to another. The difference may be great
in formy certainly the one mode is simpler than
the other; but surely the spirit ia ideptioally
the same
This, then, is marriage-on the one side
gaoler, on the other prisoner for life, a legal
nonentity, classed with infants and idiots; or,
if there should ever come liberty, coming only
through that poor prisoners hopeless ruin-ruin
she is power1ess to syert, be she thu most inno-
cent of Gods creatures. Neither property nor
legal recognition, neither liberty nor protection,
has she-nothing but a mans tickle fancy, and
a mans frail mercy, between her and misery,
between her and destruction. This is marriage,
as by the law of England. Let those who doubt
it, and those who do not doubt it, consult the
vigorous and manly writer, with head as sound
as his heart, whose pamphlet has supplied these
notable illustrations Household Words.
Remarks upon the Law of Marriage and Divorce sug
gested by the Hon. Mrs Norton's Letters to the Queen
| Ridgeway, Piccadiliy
| For the National Era.
THE LAST NIGHT.