WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES
It has been my aim, in this short history of the growth of women's
rights, to depict for the most part the strictly legal aspect of the
matter; but from time to time I have interposed some typical
illustration of public opinion, in order to bring into greater
prominence the ferment that was going on or the misery which existed
behind the scenes. A history of legal processes might otherwise, from
the coldness of the laws, give few hints of the conflicts of human
passion which combined to set those processes in motion.
Before I
present the history of the progress of women's rights in the United
States, I shall place before the reader some extracts which are typical
and truly representative of the opposition which from the beginning of
the agitation to the present day has voiced itself in all ranks of life.
Let the reader bear carefully in mind that from 1837 to the beginning of
the twentieth century such abuse as that which I shall quote as typical
was hurled from ten thousand throats of men and women unceasingly; that
Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, and Mrs. Gage were hissed, insulted, and
offered physical violence by mobs in New York[410] and Boston to an
extent inconceivable in this age; and that the marvellously unselfish
labour of such women as these whom I have mentioned and of men like
Wendell Phillips is alone responsible for the improvement in the legal
status of women, which I propose to trace in detail.
Some expressions of
the popular attitude follow:
[Sidenote: Examples of opposition to women's rights.]
From a speech of the Rev. Knox-Little at the Church of St. Clements in
Philadelphia in 1880: "God made himself to be born of a woman to
sanctify the virtue of endurance; loving submission is an attribute of a
woman; men are logical, but women, lacking this quality, have an
intricacy of thought. There are those who think women can be taught
logic; this is a mistake. They can never by any power of education
arrive at the same mental status as that enjoyed by men, but they have a
quickness of apprehension, which is usually called leaping at
conclusions, that is astonishing. There, then, we have distinctive
traits of a woman, namely, endurance, loving submission, and quickness
of apprehension. Wifehood is the crowning glory of a woman. In it she is
bound for all time. To her husband she owes the duty of unqualified
obedience. There is no crime which a man can commit which justifies his
wife in leaving him or applying for that monstrous thing, divorce. It
is her duty to subject herself to him always, and no crime that he can
commit can justify her lack of obedience. If he be a bad or wicked man,
she may gently remonstrate with him, but refuse him never. Let divorce
be anathema; curse it; curse this accursed thing, divorce; curse it,
curse it! Think of the blessedness of having children. I am the father
of many children and there have been those who have ventured to pity me.
'Keep your pity for yourself,' I have replied, 'they never cost me a
single pang.' In this matter let woman exercise that endurance and
loving submission which, with intricacy of thought, are their only
characteristics."
From the Philadelphia _Public Ledger and Daily Transcript_, July 20,
1848: "Our Philadelphia ladies not only possess beauty, but they are
celebrated for discretion, modesty, and unfeigned diffidence, as well as
wit, vivacity, and good nature. Who ever heard of a Philadelphia lady
setting up for a reformer or standing out for woman's rights, or
assisting to _man_ the election grounds [_sic_], raise a regiment,
command a legion, or address a jury? Our ladies glow with a higher
ambition. They soar to rule the hearts of their worshippers, and secure
obedience by the sceptre of affection.... But all women are not as
reasonable as ours of Philadelphia. The Boston ladies contend for the
rights of women. The New York girls aspire to mount the rostrum, to do
all the voting, and, we suppose, all the fighting, too.... Our
Philadelphia girls object to fighting and holding office. They prefer
the baby-jumper to the study of Coke and Lyttleton, and the ball-room to
the Palo Alto battle. They object to having a George Sand for President
of the United States; a Corinna for Governor; a Fanny Wright for Mayor;
or a Mrs. Partington for Postmaster.... Women have enough influence over
human affairs without being politicians.... A woman is nobody. A wife is
everything. A pretty girl is equal to ten thousand men, and a mother is,
next to God, all powerful.... The ladies of Philadelphia, therefore,
under the influence of the most 'sober second thoughts'
are resolved to
maintain their rights as Wives, Belles, Virgins, and Mothers, and not as
Women."
From the "Editor's Table" of _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_, November,
1853: "Woman's Rights, or the movement that goes under that name, may
seem to some too trifling in itself and too much connected with
ludicrous associations to be made the subject of serious arguments. If
nothing else, however, should give it consequence, it would demand our
earnest attention from its intimate connection with all the radical and
infidel movements of the day. A strange affinity seems to bind them all
together.... But not to dwell on this remarkable connection--the claim
of 'woman's rights' presents not only the common radical notion which
underlies the whole class, but also a peculiar enormity of its own; in
some respects more boldly infidel, or defiant both of nature and
revelation, than that which characterises any kindred measure. It is
avowedly opposed to the most time-honoured proprieties of social life;
it is opposed to nature; it is opposed to revelation....
This unblushing
female Socialism defies alike apostles and prophets. In this respect no
kindred movement is so decidedly infidel, so rancorously and avowedly
anti-biblical.
"It is equally opposed to nature and the established order of society
founded upon it. We do not intend to go into any physiological argument.
There is one broad striking fact in the constitution of the human
species which ought to set the question at rest for ever. This is the
fact of maternity.... From this there arise, in the first place,
physical impediments which, during the best part of the female life, are
absolutely insurmountable, except at a sacrifice of almost everything
that distinguishes the civilized human from the animal, or beastly, and
savage state. As a secondary, yet inevitably resulting consequence,
there come domestic and social hindrances which still more completely
draw the line between the male and female duties....
Every attempt to
break through them, therefore, must be pronounced as unnatural as it is
irreligious and profane.... The most serious importance of this modern
'woman's rights' doctrine is derived from its direct bearing upon the
marriage institution. The blindest must see that such a change as is
proposed in the relations and life of the sexes cannot leave either
marriage or the family in their present state. It must vitally affect,
and in time wholly sever, that oneness which has ever been at the
foundation of the marriage idea, from the primitive declaration in
Genesis to the latest decision of the common law. This idea gone--and it
is totally at war with the modern theory of 'woman's rights'--marriage
is reduced to the nature of a contract simply.... That which has no
higher sanction than the will of the contracting parties, must, of
course, be at any time revocable by the same authority that first
created it. That which makes no change in the personal relations, the
personal rights, the personal duties, is not the holy marriage _union_,
but the unholy _alliance_ of concubinage."
In a speech of Senator George G. Vest, of Missouri, in the United States
Senate, January 25, 1887, these: "I now propose to read from a pamphlet
sent to me by a lady.... She says to her own sex: 'After all, men work
for women; or, if they think they do not, it would leave them but sorry
satisfaction to abandon them to such existence as they could arrange
without us.'
"Oh, how true that is, how true!"
In 1890 a bill was introduced in the New York Senate to lower the "age
of consent"--the age at which a girl may legally consent to sexual
intercourse--from 16 to 14. It failed. In 1892 the brothel keepers tried
again in the Assembly. The bill was about to be carried by universal
consent when the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, feeling the
importance of the measure, called for the individual yeas and nays, in
order that the constituents of the representatives might know how their
legislators voted. The bill thereupon collapsed. In 1889
a motion was
made in the Kansas Senate to lower the age of consent from 18 to _12_.
But the public heard of it; protests flowed in; and under the pressure
of these the law was allowed to remain as it was.
Such are some typical examples of the warfare of the opposition to all
that pertains to advancing the status of women. As I review the progress
of their rights, let the reader recollect that this opposition was
always present, violent, loud, and often scurrilous.
In tracing the history of women's rights in the United States my plan
will be this: I shall first give a general review of the various
movements connected with the subject; and I shall then lay before the
reader a series of tables, wherein may be seen at a glance the status of
women to-day in the various States.
[Sidenote: Single women.]
[Sidenote: History of agitation for women's rights.]
In our country, as in England, single women have at all times had
practically the same legal rights as men; but by no means the same
political, social, educational, or professional privileges; as will
appear more conclusively later on.
We may say that the history of the agitation for women's rights began
with the visit of Frances Wright to the United States in 1820. Frances
Wright was a Scotchwoman, born at Dundee in 1797, and early exhibited a
keen intellect on all the subjects which concern political and social
reform. For several years after 1820 she resided here and strove to make
men and women think anew on old traditional beliefs--
more particularly
on theology, slavery, and the social degradation of women. The venomous
denunciations of press and pulpit attested the success of her efforts.
In 1832 Lydia Maria Child published her _History of Woman_, a résumé of
the status of women; and this was followed by numerous works and
articles, such as Margaret Fuller's, _The Great Lawsuit, or Man vs.
Woman: Woman vs. Man_, and Eliza Farnham's _Woman and her Era_. Various
women lectured; such as Ernestine L. Rose--a Polish woman, banished for
asserting her liberty. The question of women's rights received a
powerful impetus at this period from the vast number of women who were
engaged in the anti-slavery agitation. Any research into the validity of
slavery perforce led the investigators to inquire into the justice of
the enforced status of women; and the two causes were early united.
Women like Angelina and Sarah Grimké and Lucretia Mott were pioneers in
numerous anti-slavery conventions. But as soon as they dared to address
meetings in which men were present, a tempest was precipitated; and in
1840, at the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery Association, the men
refused to serve on any committee in which any woman had a part;
although it had been largely the contributions of women which were
sustaining the cause. Affairs reached a climax in London, in 1840, at
the World's Anti-Slavery Convention. Delegates from all anti-slavery
organisations were invited to take part; and several American societies
sent women to represent them. These ladies were promptly denied any
share in the proceedings by the English members, thanks mainly to the
opposition of the clergy, who recollected with pious satisfaction that
St. Paul permitted not a woman to teach. Thereupon Lucretia Mott and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton determined to hold a women's rights convention as
soon as they returned to America; and thus a World's Anti-Slavery
Convention begat an issue equally large.
Accordingly, the first Women's Rights Convention was held at Seneca
Falls, New York, July 19-20, 1848. It was organised by _divorced wives,
childless women, and sour old maids_, the gallant newspapers declared;
that is, by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mrs. Lucretia Mott, Mrs.
McClintock, and other fearless women, who not only lived the purest and
most unselfish of domestic lives, but brought up many children besides.
Great crowds attended. A _Declaration of Sentiments_ was moved and
adopted; and as this exhibits the temper of the convention and
illustrates the then prevailing status of women very clearly, I shall
quote it:
DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a
position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one
to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the
causes which impel them to such a course.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever
any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the
right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to
insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation
on such principles, and organising its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be
changed for light or transient causes; and accordingly all experience
hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which
they were accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them
under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government,
and to provide new guards for their future security.
Such has been the
patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now
the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which
they are entitled.
"The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts
be submitted to a candid world.
"He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the
elective franchise.
"He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she
had no voice.
"He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant
and degraded men--both natives and foreigners.
"Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective
franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of
legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
"He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
"He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she
earns.
"He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit
many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her
husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise
obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her
master--the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to
administer chastisement.
"He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper
causes, and, in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the
children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of
women--the law in all cases going upon a false supposition of the
supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.
"After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single, and
the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which
recognises her only when her property can be made profitable to it.
"He has monopolised nearly all the profitable employments, and from
those she is permitted to follow she receives but a scanty remuneration.
He closes against her all the avenues of wealth and distinction which he
considers most honourable to himself. As a teacher of theology,
medicine, or law, she is not known.
"He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education,
all colleges being closed against her.
"He allows her in church, as well as state, but a subordinate position,
claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and,
with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of
the church.
"He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a
different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies
which exclude women from society are not only tolerated, but deemed of
little account in man.
"He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his
right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her
conscience and to her God.
"He has endeavoured, in every way that he could, to destroy her
confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make
her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.
"Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one half the people of
this country, their social and religious degradation; in view of the
unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves
aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred
rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights
and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.
"In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small
amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall
use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We
shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and National
legislatures, and endeavour to enlist the pulpit and press in our
behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of
Conventions embracing every part of the country."
Such was the defiance of the Women's Rights Convention in 1848; other
conventions were held, as at Rochester, in 1853, and at Albany in 1854;
the movement extended quickly to other States and touched the quick of
public opinion. It bore its first good fruits in New York in 1848, when
the Property Bill was passed. This law, amended in 1860, and entitled
"An Act Concerning the Rights and Liabilities of Husband and Wife"
(March 20, 1860), emancipated completely the wife, gave her full control
of her own property, allowed her to engage in all civil contracts or
business on her own responsibility, rendered her joint guardian of her
children with her husband, and granted both husband and wife a one-third
share of one another's property in case of the decease of either
partner.
Thus New York became the pioneer. The movement spread, as I have
mentioned, with amazing rapidity; but it was not so uniformly
successful. Conventions were held, for example, in Ohio, at Salem,
April 19-20, 1850; at Akron, May 28-29, 1851; at Massillon on May 27,
1852. Nevertheless, in 1857, the Legislature of Ohio passed a bill
enacting that no married man should dispose of any personal property
without having first obtained the consent of his wife; the wife was
empowered, in case of a violation of this law, to commence a civil suit
in her own name for the recovery of the property; and any married woman
whose husband deserted her or neglected to provide for his family was to
be entitled to his wages and to those of her minor children. A bill to
extend suffrage to women was defeated, by a vote of 44
to 44; the
petition praying for its enactment had received 10,000
signatures.
The course of events as it has been described in New York and Ohio, is
practically the same in the case of the other States.
The Civil War
relegated these issues to a secondary place; but during that momentous
conflict the heroism of Clara Barton on the battlefield and of thousands
of women like her paved the way for a reassertion of the rights of woman
in the light of her unquestioned exertions and unselfish labours for her
country in its crisis. After the war, attention began to be concentrated
more on the right to _vote_. By the Fourteenth Amendment the franchise
was at once given to negroes; but the insertion of the word _male_
effectually barred any national recognition of woman's right to vote. A
vigorous effort was made by the suffrage leaders to have _male_
stricken from the amendment; but the effort was futile.
Legislators
thought that the black man's vote ought to be secured first; as the _New
York Tribune_ (Dec. 12, 1866) puts it snugly: "We want to see the ballot
put in the hands of the black without one day's delay added to the long
postponement of his just claim. When that is done, we shall be ready to
take up the next question" (i.e., woman's rights).
The first Women's Rights Convention after the Civil War had been held in
New York City, May 10, 1866, and had presented an address to Congress.
Such was the dauntless courage of the leaders, that Mrs.
Stanton offered
herself as a candidate for Congress at the November elections, in order
to test the constitutional rights of a woman to run for office. She
received twenty-four votes.
Six years later, on November I, 1872, Miss Susan B.
Anthony did a far
more Audacious thing. She went to the polls and asked to be registered.
The two Republican members of the board were won over by her exposition
of the Fourteenth Amendment and agreed to receive her name, against the
advice of their Democratic colleague and a United States supervisor.
Following Miss Anthony's example, some fifty other women of Rochester
registered. Fourteen voted and were at once arrested under the
enforcement act of Congress of May 31, 1870 (_section_
19). The case of
Miss Anthony was argued, ably by her attorney; but she was adjudged
guilty. A _nolle prosequi_ was entered for the women who voted with her.
Immediately after the decision in h