Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1884-10-16
Mrs. Elizabeth StantOn's New Theories
About Marriage.

About Marriage.
Springfield Union.
Mrs. Eliz ibeth Cady Stanton, II she
has been correctly reported. holds
some rather startling views on the
marriage relation, and her utterances
might bear questionable interpreta-
ton were it not for the great latitude
of opinion that has become tolerated
on social questions with the growth of
popular interest and discussion.
"When husbands and wives do not
own each other as property" she re-
marks, Marriage will be lifelong
courtship, not weary yoke, from
which both sometimes long for deliver
ance. Many a tyrannical husband,
knowing, that public sentiment would
protect his wife in leaving him, might
become gracious and reasonable, and
many peevish wife, knowing that her
husband could honorably surrender the
tie, would soon change her manners.
Mrs. Stanton is not pleading the
cause of free love as some might infer
indeed her name is voucher for the
| high character of her motive-but sho
is arguing for g5eater independence
for woman. Her point looks plausible
in itself but Mrs. Stanton ought to
know that the conditions which she
demands would most assuredly ope-
rate 10 defeat the ends which she desires
10 promote. The great complaint
against easy divorce arises from the
facility it affords for the separation
of those who do not want to live
together, and the condem-
nation If separation by public opinion
is now one of the safe guards
Of the family in that it pre-
vents the breaking up of unions, the
parties to which are inclined TO separa-
ton. There are too many people in the
world who would be glad to relieve
themselves of the marital yoke could
they do SO "honorably" and without
scandal, not always from so-called ''in.
compatibility, but often from the con-
viction that marriage in their case has
been a mistake. For this and other
reasons il may easily be seen that such
condition would result in SO great 9
number of experiments in marriage a:
!. TO throw society into utter confusion
and finally destroy the institution of the
family altogether, which, even suppos
ing it was all right and honorable in IL
0elf, would be disasterous to the inter
es.s of the community, and, finally, Il
the state and Nation.
The strength of the marriage tie ant
the safety of the family are due, &C
cording to the best study and observa
ton, to precisely the condition Mrs
Stanton would remove-the dependence
of tho wife and the supremacy of tn
husband in the home. Provide for tn
complete emancipation" of women-o
men, 100, should be added make tn
sexes socially, politically, industria!l
and conjugally equal; abolish the bind
ing quality of the marriage tie and care
fully provide that easy separation
shall be honorable and right
and that neither husband nor wifi
: shall have restraining CLAIM
on the other and the in
evitable effect must be, not as Mrs
Stanton hopes, to cement unhappy o
! distasteful unions and make them pleas
ant, but to promote constant separa
tons, to make lasting marriage con
0 tract rare and, by the very force of III
z circumstances, an undesirable thing
s either men or women, to decrease tn
: number OF families, multiply celibates
. and, as consequence which any socia
student can forsee, promote the wors
conditions of vice. To realize sue
hopes from such conditions it will
necessary TO assume other conditions
which render the whole scheme Utopiar
unreal an. impracticable in furtherin
| anv desirable result
! On the whole we think we pre-
, fer that the husband and wife shoul
, continue to own each other, und tn
stronger the better. The present re
strictions Of marriage are not distaste
full to those who have formed lovin
and honorable unions. 1t is only thos
who are not controlled by a high ar
, probation of the institution OF the FAM
| ly and who enter the marriage stat
from rash impulse and short-sighted ir
clination who find its bonds or its rela
! tons irksome. The man or woma
! who could feel no bond of possessio
or ownership of and by wife or husban
to whom the words ''my wife, an
| my husband" arc phrases of copyer
, ience only-has no part in our envy
J and we hope no condition of societ
will arise that will increase the humble
/. OF such husbands and wives.