The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1875-12-09
A MICHIGAN SENSATION.

The latest sensation in a small way is
from over III Michigan. Randolph
Strickland, of st. Johns, an ex-membel
OF Congress, has for some years past
been a leader in the woman suffrage
movement. He took his daughter to
the meetings, and put her forward as a
speaker, in which role she achieved a
local celebrity. The result in her case
has been that she has become a convert
to the Woodruff doctrine in regard to
marriage. Although but twenty years
old, she represents, in a letter to the St.
Johns mich. Republican, that she has
come into the knowledge of such horri-
bic facts respecting the sufferings of
women in the marriage relation, that she
is appalled,. "Bright girl friends" of
hers, she say, "who few years ago
laughed and danced inJoyousness, now
drag their weary bodies just this side of
the grave, daily praying to die" All
this is because they got married. That
village of st. Johns must be horrid
place. These ''facts," she says, make
her shudder whenever she hears the
peal of the marriage bell, and she de-
clares that she never could take upon
herself the legal bonds of matrimony
and so she has gone and formed a ''bus-
mess partnership" with one Leo Miller,
Buffalo spiritualist, "under the name
of Miller and Strickland. The condi-
ton of the contract, which is signed by
both and published, are that their joint
earnings shall be shared equally. Then
follows the usual Woodruff twaddle to
the effect that mutual affection is the
only bond of union that should be recog-
nized between man and woman, and the
hope is expressed that the union which
they have thus formed will last through
life and beyond the grave. How much
reason there is for such hope will best
be understood by those who have noted
the result of similar unions heretofore
The probability is that one or the other,
or both of them will, in the course of a
year or two, find out that the union is
not one of affection" and so it will be
dissolved, and new partnerships" will
be formed.
The contract pledges the parties joint
ly and severally, and their administrat-
ors and assigns, to support during infan-
cy and youth, any Offspring that may
bless the union" It is in keeping with
The spirit of this contract that it is dated
at Chicago.
Miss Strickland is described as of
pleasing personal appearance, well form
ed, of fair and rosy complexion, beauti-
fnl hair, which is worn in ringlets, and
possessing considerable intellectual abil-
ity. Think of snch girl, only few
years out of short dresses, discovering
that the marriage relation, as recognized
by law, which is several thousand years
old at least, is productive of such wrongs
that she shudders at thought of it, and
is so Mortified at what she knows of it
from her ''girl friends, that she has
left her home, in partnership with re-
former, to raise her voice against the
proclamation of the affections Of which the
whole civilized world has been guilty
for centuries9 1t is no wonder that her
parents are overwhelmed with grief, and
publish card asking the sympathy of
their friends in their sorrow for ''the
course pursued by their poor, deluded,
misguided, and insane daughter"
But are not her parents, at least her
father, largely responsible for her
course? Is not that course the natural
result of the prevailing sentiment in the
circle of 'sreformers," into which he in
troduced her? We do not mean to con-
vey the impression that all, or majori-
ty, of those who advocate the extension
of suffrage to women are tainted with
these loose notions about marriage; but
unfortunately the woman suffrage move
ment is mixed more or less with the
abomiable free-love element, and is, SO
far as it assumes the shape of an orgari-
zation, somewhat controlled by those
who sneer at the idea of indissoluble
marriage. 1t is aquestion which deserves
careful consideration, whether the ten
dency of what is popularIy understood
by woman's rights and womans indie
pendent sphere is not in the direction of
such ruinous folly as that of which this
poor girl has been guilty.