American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-02-01
Cold Comfort.

The cause of woman's rights has met
with blow in England. A judicial de-
cisl0n has been rendered which attacks
not merely the claim of the wife to be in
dependent OF and superior to her hus-
band, but even her right to share equally
in one of the most indispensable privi-
leges of any household. 1t is not her
right to the metaphOrical and symbolic
trOwsers which is denied, but her reason
able and proper claim to Ii share in the
marital blanket.
1t has hitherto been supposed that the
wife had a property in the undivided half
of the marital bedsteai, mattress, and
other accessories, which could only be de-
stroyed by her own misconduct. The
law has supported this view by specifi-
cally granting to the widow the sole
ownership of her bedstead and bedding;
while the practice, peculiar to sighted
husbands, of advertising their runaway
wives as having resigned all rights in re-
spect to bedroom furniture, strongly sup
ports the same theory. But now we are
told by an English Judge that this view
is a wholly mistaken one, and that the
wife who attempts to enforce it is guilty
of misdemeanOr
The case which called out the decision
originated in the vigorous conduct of a
evening, and found her husband mOnOpO-
lizing the entire supply of sheets and
blankets, wholly regardless of her feel
ings or the state of the weather. Indig-
nant at his selfishness, she proceeded to
establish her rights with the fire-shOvel,
and to convince him with the poker, of the
gross injustice of his conduct. The inge-
nuity with which he had encased himself
in a maze of blanket, proved fatal to the
integrity of his cuticle, for he was unable
to extricate himself before his wife had
proceeded so far in her argument as to
decorate him with a variety of neat pat
terms in black and blue. The following
day he preferred against her charge of
assault and battery, of which she was
found guilty, and sentenced to fine and
The possession of a right implies the
further right to enforce it. If this injured
woman could not enforce her claim to half
the marital blanket, it follows that her
claim was not legal one. The effect of
this decision is, therefore, to apprise the
wives of England that they are dependent
tor blankets wholly upon the generosity
Of their respective husbands. Hereafter,
the s,lfish husband may condemn his
wife to shiver through the night unprO-
tected, except by the casual mat or the
accidental hearth-Iug, and no woman of
foresight and caution will consent to en-
ter the married state unless proper pro-
vision of blankets be expressly guaran-
,eed in the marriage settlement. Thus,
while Mrs. Jex-Blake and her friends are
lighting for the unsubstantial shadow of
hospital privileges, they are losing the in
lispensabie substances of sheet and blan-
1et. Though they gain the sweet privi-
ege of carving the corpse of the pauper,
heir triumph is embittered by the thought
hat the law has established a male mono
poly of blankets, and that the monster,
nan, is henceforth permitted to revel in
unlimited bed-clothes, while the wife is
orced to sue humbly with the fire-shovel
or a corner Of counterpart, and to feign
,oundless gratitude for the boon of mar
,ow strip of sheet.-N. Y. Times.