The St. Cloud journal. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1866-1876, 1871-06-01
BIZ HEaussr.J
WONAN'S COLUMN.

money matters, as inconsistent With the
idea fusion Of two lives into one. For
my own part, I am one of the strong
est supporters of COZ nunity Of goods,
when resulting from an entire unity of
feeling in tho owners, which makes all
things common between them. But I
have no relish fol q community Of goods
resting on the doctrine, that what is
mine in not yours and l should pre-
fer to decline entering into such COM
pact with any one, though we're N.Y.
self the person to profit by it.
It is not true that in all voluntary
association between two people, one of
them must be absolute master still less
that the law must determine which of
them it shall be. The most frequent
case of voluntary association, next to
marriage, is partnership 10 business:
and it is not found or thought necessa-
~ to enact that in every partnership,
one partner shall have entire control
over tho concern, aud the others shall
be bound to obey his orders. No one
would enter in partnership on terms
which would subject him to the re.
sp,nsibilites Of principal, with only
the powers and privileges of clerk or
agent. If the law dealt With other
contracts as it does with marriage, it
would ordain that one partner should
administer the common business as if
it was his private concern; that the
others should have only delegated pow
ers and that this one should be desig-
mated by some general presumption of
law, for example as being the eldest
The law never does this; nor does ex-
perience show it to be necessary that
any theoretical inequality of power
should exist between the partners, or
that the partnership should have any
other conditions than what they may
themselves appoint by their articles of
agreement. Yet it might seem that
the exclusive power might be conceded
With less danger to the rights and To-
terests of the inferior, in the case Of
partnership than in that of marriage,
since he is free to cancel the power by
withdra Ming from the connection. The
wife has 10 such power, and even if
she had, it is almost always desirable
that she shonld try all measures before
resorting to it.
1t is quite true that this which have
to be decided every day, and cannot ad-
just themselves gradually, OF wait for q
compromise, ought to depend on one
will: one person must have their sole
control. But it does not follow that
this should always be the same person.
The natural arrangement is division
of powers between the two; each be-
ing absolute in the executive branch of
their own department, and an1 change
Of system and principle requiring the
consent o: both. The division neither
can nor should be pre-. established by
the law, since is must depend on 1ndi-
vidual capacities aud suitabilities. If
the two persons chose, they might pre-
appoint it by the marriage contract, as
pecuniary arrangements are now often
pre.appointed. There would seldom be
any difficulty IN deciding such things
by mutual consent, unless the marriage
was one of those unhappy ones in which
all other things, as we'll as this, become
subjects of pickering abd dispute. The
division Of duties would naturally fol.
low the division duties and functions ;
and that is already made by consent, or
at all events not by law, but by gener-
al custom, modified and modi6able at
the pleasure of the persons concerned.
believe that equal ty of rights
would abate the exaggerated self.abro-
cation which is the present artificial
ideal of feminine character, and that a
good woman would not be more self
sacrificing than the best man; but on
the other hand, men would be much
more unsel6sh and self-sacri6ciog than
at present, because they would no lon-
ger be taught to worship their own will
as such grand thing that it is actu.
tually the law for another rational be.
ing. There is nothing which men so
easily learn as this eeleworship; all
privileged persons, and all privileged
classes, have had it. The more We de.
scend in the scale Of humanity, the in.
tenser it is; and most Of all in those
who are not, and can never expect to
be raised above any one except an un.
fortunate wife and children. The hon.
orable exceptions are proportionately
fewer than in the case of almost any
other human in6rmity. Philosophy and
religion, instead Of keeping it in check
are generally suborned to defend it;
and nothing controls it but that prao-
ticaI feeling Of the equality of human
beings, which is the theory of christi
anity, but which christianity will
never practically teach, while it ssno-
tions institutions grounded on an arbi-
trary preference of one human being
over another.
If our times are sterile in genius,
We must cheer Us with books of rich
and believing men who had atmosphere
and amnlitnda ahont then. Evorv