The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1873-09-16

Avoid the gay tempter and taste not the bowl
Brooksvillc, Sept. 5, 1873. OBSERVER
Ownership in Women.
A man was recently hanged in Massa-
chusetts for taking vengeance on one who
had practically disputed his property in
girl. The man was brute, of course,
but he had an opinion that girl who had
given herself to him, in the completest
surrender that woman can make, was
in some sense his-:hat her giving her.
self to another involved his dishonor-
and that his property in her was to be
defended to to the extremity of death.
A prominent newspaper, while recording
the facts of the case, takes the occasion
to say that this idea of ownership in
women is the same barbarism out of
which grow the evils and wrongs that the
"woman movement" is intended to re-
move. II We were tG respond that owner
ship In women, only bindly apprehendcd
as it was by our brutal gallows. bird, is
the one thing that saves us from the wild.
est doctrines and practices of the free
lovers. and is one of the strongest con-
servative forces Of society, it is quite
likely that we should be misunderstood +,
but we shall run the risk, and make the
assertion.
There is an instinct in the heart of
every woman which tells her that she is
his to whom she gives herself, and his
alone,-an instinct which bids her cling
to him while she lives or he lives-which
makes Of him and her twain, one flesh.
When this gift is once made to true
man, he recognizes its significance. He
is to provide for her that which she can.
not provide for herself; he is to protect
ber to the extent of his power; she is to
share his home, and to be his closest com
panion. His ownership in her covers his
most sacred possession, and devolves up
on him the gravest duties If it were
otherwise, why is it that q woman who
gives herself away unworthily feels, when
she finds herself deceived, that she is lost
that she has parted with herself to one
who does not recognize the pature of the
gift, and that she who ought to be owned,
and, by being owned, honored lis disowned
and dishonored? ? There is no true, pure
woman living who, when she gives her.
self away, Goes not rejoice in the owner.
ship which makes her forever the property
of one man. She is not his slave to b.
tasked and abused, because she is the gift
| OF love and not the purchase of money
but she is his, in sense in which sh,
cannot be another mans without dishonol
to him ard damnation to herself.
Our gallows.bird was, iu his bruta
way, right. If he had been living il
savage society, without laws, and will
the necessity of guarding his own treas
ures, his act would have been looked upol
as one of heroism by all the beauties ano
braves Of his tribe. The weak point il
his case was, that his ownership in wha
he was pleased to call Ibis girl" was no
established according to the laws unde
which he lived. He was not legally
married, and had acquired no rights un
der the law to be defended. What h,
was pleased to consider his rights wer
established contrary to law, and he coul'
} not appeal to law for their defense. H
took the woman to himself contrary t.
law, he defended his property in her b,
murder, and he was hanged. He wa
, served right. Hemp would grow on
, rock for such as he anywhere in the world
There is no cure for the man who seduce
and Stays but broken neck.
S There is nothing more menacipg in tn
Q aspect Of social affairs in this countr
I, than the effort among certain class Q
retormers to break up the identity Q
e interest and feeling among men and won
en-. Men are alluded to with sneers an
, blame, rs being opposed to the interest
a OF women, as using the power in thei
f hands-a power usurped-to maintai
J., their own predominance at the expens
/. OF woman's rights and woman's well
being. Marriage, under this kind G
y teaching, becomes contract of conver
:. ience, into which men and women ma
: enter, each party taking along the pei
Y sonal independence enjoyed in singl
state, with separate business interests an
n separate pursuits. In other words, maj
t riage is regard simply as the legal con
y panionship oftwo beings of opposite sexe
!. who have their own Independent pursuit
n with which the bond is not permitted I
e interfere. 1t coutemplates no identifies
e tion of life and destiny. Tho man holC
,e no ownership in woman which gives hi
n a right to family of children, and Ii
,r devoted to the sacred duties Of mothe
,e hood. The man who expects such
,. sacrifice at the hands of his wife is r
garded as tyrant or brute. Won,
Of are to vote, and trade, and practice la
ID and preach, and 60 to Congress, and
Is everything that man does irrespecti
to of the marriage bonds. Women are
10 be just as free to do anything outside
il their homes as men are. They are
lg choose their careers and pursue them wi
IN just as little reference to the internal a
or ministration Of their families as tn,
Ii. husbands exercise. This is the aim a
te logical end of all the modern doctriu
as concerning woman's rights. The iden
to 6cation Of woman with man, as the ba
- of the institution of the family, is scofl
at. Any ownership in woman, that con