New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-05-14
MARRIAGE A. A BUSINESS.

.
Whether the Woman's Rights Conventions will
finally succeed or not in enlargDg the sphere of
woman. they have certainly been very successful
in enargDg that of their platform Having intro
duced easy Divorce as one of the reforms which
the new order of things demands, we can see no
good reason why the platform should not be alto
qether replanked so as to cover all human rela-
tons. We respectfully suggest that with the
change OF purpose there shall also be change OF
name. and that hereafter these meetings shall be
called not in the name of Woman, but in the name
of Wives Discontinued. Hitherto, we have sup
posed that the aim of this movement related to
wrongs which woman suffered as woman, political
and social inequalities and disabilities with which
she was mjustly burdened. settlement of the
marriage relation, we conceive, does not come
within this category. AS there can DO no
wives without husbands, the subject concerns the
latter auite as much IA it does the former. One OF
the wrongs which, it is charged, woman suffers
from man is that he legislates for her where she
is not represented. We acknowledge the justice
Of that plea and for that very reason complain
that she, under the name of WOman's Rights,
importance to him where he is supposed to be
admitted only on sufferance. We believe In
Womans Rights we have some convictions on
the rights of husbands and wives; we are not yet,
we confess, up to that advanced state which
enables US to consider the rights OF wives as some
thing apart from those of husbands.
On the subject of Marriage and Divorce we have
md -hat tiat 10
pretty well known. But even were they less
positive and fixed, we should none the less pro-
test against the sweeping character of the resou-
tions introduced at the Womau's Rights Conven-
ton on Friday by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
We cannot look upon the marriage relation as of
no more binding force than that which a man may
make with partner for the sale Of dry goods or
groceries, or an engagement he may contract with
sehoomaster, or goyerness. Such doctrine
seems to us as simply shocking. The intimate
relation existing between one man and one woman
sanctifed by, at least the memory of an early and
sincere affection, rendered more sacred by the
present bond of dependent children, the fruit of
that love, hallowed by many joys and
many sorrows, though they be only re-
membered joys and sorrows, with other interests
that can he broken in upon only to be. destroyed
such relation, we are very sure, has elements of
quite another nature than those which belong to
the shop or the contingencies. In our Judgment
the balance of duty cannot be- struck like the bal
ance of mercantile statement of profit and loss, or
measured with the calculation we bestow upon an
Account Current. Such doctrine We regard as
pcrncious and debasng. We can conceive Of
nothing that would more utterly sap the founda
tons of sound morality give looser rein to the
most licentiCus aud deprayed appeites of the vest
of men and women. Upon the physiological and
psychological laws which govern generation, We
do not care here to enter, even though Mrs. Stanton
leads the way; but we believe that the progeny
which would spring out of connections formed
under such dispensation of immortality as is
here Indicated with so little sense of duty or con-
science, with so little hope expectation of abid
ing affection with SO little intention of permanency
as must necessarily belong to them, would be more
monstrous than the world has ever dreamed Of
For such rule of married life contemplates not
only no married life at all, but no parental rela-
ton. II destroys the family il renders the dearest
word in the Saxon tongue vague and unneaning
term; it multiplies tbousand-fold and renders
universal all the evils which in the imperiectiOns
Of human nature are now occasional under the
binding force of moral sense, the duty of conti-
nency and the remembrance if nothing else isl left,
of love.
There are some things beside those resolutions
to which We might object on the score of taste,
some things which We rather marvel that modest
woman should Say, and that modest women in u
mixed assembly should listen to with patience.
But these are secondary matters. The thought
that runs through them all, that the mariage-tei is
of the same nature az mere business relation, is
Objectionable, so dangerous, that we do not care
to draw attention from that one point