The Monitor., 1888-11-30

NOs 6e1s
fingers: Indians, negroes, idiots, child
ren, criminals, and women. None Of these
vote
Hooked at my father. SIS that true >"
l asked
eyes. it is true. Now go and attend to
what l told you"
| turned and walked blindly out. Tears
filled my eyes. recalled the weeping Ia
dians l had seen going away from their
holy grounds, carrying their little all
away, without any home. remember tie
old plantation visit. My father had been
my comrade; we had talked and reasoned
together, child as l was. Now felt that
I was not as he was.-that could never
reach his stand point, as [ could if I were
boy. gulf seemed to lie between us,
| and | went out alone to my reading. and
never again was the same old spirit mine.
Though my father saw how keen real
lied this degraded association, he never
comprehended the pain that discovery
gave me until long afterwards.
The old common law prevailed every
where then, and once he took a. ring from
off his finger and quoted the words, "With
this ring | thee wed, and with all my
worldly goods | thee endow, and laugh
ing in boisterous scorn. declared that it
was utterly false; for that under the law,
unless marriage settlement has been made,
though the woman who married were dow
cred as a princess. she lost every dollar,
and her husband became not only the own
| er of her person, but of every dollar of her
fathers hard-earned money.
l was young when l married, and before
this took place my father often deplored
my sex. '1f you were a boy" he frequent
ly exclaimed, "what splendid lawyer l
would make of you" Alas. mo high school
was open, no college such as would have
served his purpose.
married at less than sixteen. People
assert that early marriages are the re-
suit of earlier development in warm eli
mates. My own impression is that early
marriages are the result of ignorance
among women, far more than climate
Early marriages decrease just as education
increases among women. My health had
been ike mountain goat's-never an ache
or pain What did know or care for a
doctor? Before | was seventeen my hour
of supreme suffering had come, and then
as never before l longed for woman doc
tor, and my very soul burned within me at
the shame to womanhood in this denial of
woman's place at woman's side; and in
every conversation. and in every article |
wrote, | called the thought of women to
this need
Years went by. and l removed to the
city of New York. By this time had
read enough of State laws to realize wo-
mans condition in every phase of it. |
found, among other shames, that in every
State the old common law was the prevail
ing law bearing upon woman's chastity,
placing the age of legal marriage at eigh-
teen, and that no woman could control her
property until that age: yet as soon as she
had completed her tenth year, if any man
could SO corrupt or persuade child to ae-
company him in his evil desires, and prove
that she went willingly and was bad. no
punishment could be meted out to him.
implored the clergy to cry out and
spare not, for in my work among unfortu-
mates | saw the evil of this crael one-sided
law; but alasl they declared, 'It is not
our place to do this, " and then saw that
here, if anywhere, the adage applied,
''Who would be free, themselves must
strike the blow, and turned every effort
to secure for my sex the power to help un-
make bad laws and remake better.
And though the ballot is still ungained,
every other good law has grown from this
agitation. = Elisabeth L. Saroa, IN The
Century.