New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1870-12-11
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.
Miss Edgart0n's Lecture.
From the New York Tribune.

Miss Lillian j. EdgartOn appeared last
night, for the first time, with her new lee
ture on marriage and divorce, before a New
York audience. Steinway Hall was mOder-
ately filled by On uncnthusiastic company,
evidently curious to see what a young and
rosy checked maiden could offer for their
instruction on subject SO foreign to such
experiences of life as she has yet enjoyed or
suffered. Miss EdgartOn was charmingly
attired, and as she appeared unattended
and unintrOduced upon the platform, her
youth and beauty made a most favorable
IMPRESSION. This neither the matter nor
the manner of the lecture fully sustained.
She lacks the OratOrical magnetism which
enables some ladies in the lecture field to
fire and sway an audience with their own
enthusiasm, and to good many. it must be
confessed, the address seems dull. As for
its substance-well, we do not generally
look to the young ladies on the platform
for that matter we did not always look to
their masculine predeccssors-fOrp profound
and original thought. or even for the results
of careful study. Miss Edgarton said some
striking things, and the tendency Of all she
said was pure and ennobling. No one will
be injured by her appeals for a more and
sacred regard for the sanctity of marriage,
and more absolute recognition of it's indis-
soluble character, and many. it is to he
hoped, may be bettered.
Miss Edgarton defined the emotions with
which man has regarded woman from the
moment of her creation. Aside from pure
sclfishness, his first sensation was that OF
pity. Then came the feeling of chivalry-
the romantic era; then the sense Of justice,
which rules now. 1t behoOvcs women to
see to it that this sentiment shall be fully
developed. The air is filed with the means
of social hypochondriacs. Marriage is in a
transition state: il must either advance to
the beauty of Justice and order, or be de-
graded to rule of license. For herself,
she didn't ask for political equality. but for
domestic and social equality, with all its
consequences and incidents.
The ancient theory of marriage was that
of inequality under ecclesiastical sanction.
That theory continues practically in force;
but man has divorced it from the ecclesias
teal authority. she considered the true
theory to be that OF perfect equality of ma Il
and wife. Of old, woman was the property
of man-slavery in the most repulsive form
was the very price Of her existence. The
polyandrous spirit as regards mans owner
| ship of woman, the lecturer thought, still
| guided the marriage relations. She exc
Grated the lawyer Sat q recent famous
| trial" who asserted that woman was made
| for man. "If this is the case" said Miss Ed
| carton, "she's not purchase nor a conquest
but Gods best and noblest gift to man.
[Applause.] She complimented Sorosis,
which dared to shoot protest at the head
of this lawyer in the denunciatiOn OF the
theory that woman is owned by man
When she heard this protest she felt that
wOman's hour had come.
The idea of one husband and one wife de
voted to each other is the idea defining tht
only paradise possible on earth. Every
woman must have one heart to respond Il