Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 | Page 2

and more:--"A man, both day and
night, must keep his wife so much in subjection that she by no means
be mistress of her own actions. If the wife have her own free will,
notwithstanding she be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss."
[Footnote A: It may be well to fortify this point by a racy extract from
that rare and amusing old book, the pioneer of its class, entitled "The
Lawes Resolutions of Women's Rights, or the Lawes Provision for
Woman. A Methodicall Collection of such Statutes and Customes, with
the Cases, Opinions, Arguments, and Points of Learning in the Law as
doe properly concern Women." London: A.D. 1632. pp. 404. 4to. The
pithy sentences lose immeasurably, however, by being removed from
their original black-letter setting.
"_Lib. III Sect. VII, The Baron may beate his Wife_.
"The rest followeth, Justice Brooke 12. H. 8. fo. 1. affirmeth plainly,
that if a man beat an out-law, a traitor, a Pagan, his villein, or his wife,

it is dispunishable, because by the Law Common these persons can
haue no action: God send Gentle women better sport, or better
companie.
"But it seemeth to be very true, that there is some kind of castigation
which Law permits a Husband to vse; for if a woman be threatned by
her husband to bee beaten, mischieued, or slaine, Fitzherbert sets donne
a Writ which she may sve out of Chancery to compell him to finde
surety of honest behauiour toward her, and that he shall neither doe nor
procure to be done to her (marke I pray you) any bodily damage,
otherwise then appertaines to the office of a Husband for lawfull and
reasonable correction. See for this the new Nat. bre. fo. 80 f. & fo. 23S
f.
"How farre that extendeth I cannot tell, but herein the sexe feminine is
at no very great disaduantage: for first for the lawfulnesse; If it be in no
other regard lawfull to beat a man's wife, then because the poore wench
can sve no other action for it, I pray why may not the Wife beat the
Husband againe, what action can he haue if she doe: where two tenants
in Common be on a, horse, and one them will trauell and vse this horse,
hee may keepe it from his Companion a yeare two or three and so be
euen with him; so the actionlesse woman beaten by her Husband, hath
retaliation left to beate him againe, if she dare. If he come to the
Chancery or Justices in the Country of the peace against her, because
her recognizance alone will hardly bee taken, he were best be bound for
her, and then if he be beaten the second time, let him know the price of
it on God's name."]
Yet behind these unchanging institutions, a pressure has been for
centuries becoming concentrated, which, now that it has begun to act, is
threatening to overthrow them all. It has not yet operated very visibly
in the Old World, where (even in England) the majority of women have
not yet mastered the alphabet, and can not sign their own names in the
marriage-register. But in this country, the vast changes of the last
twelve years are already a matter of history. No trumpet has been
sounded, no earthquake felt, while State after State has ushered into
legal existence one half of the population within its borders. Every Free
State in the American Union, except perhaps Illinois and New Jersey,
has conceded to married women, in some form, the separate control of
property. Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania have

gone farther, and given them the control of their own earnings,--given it
wholly and directly, that is,--while New York and other States have
given it partially or indirectly. Legislative committees in Ohio and
Wisconsin have recommended, in printed reports, the extension of the
right of suffrage to women; Kentucky (like Canada) has actually
extended it, in certain educational matters, and a Massachusetts
legislative committee has suggested the same thing; while the Kansas
Constitutional Convention came within a dozen votes of extending it
without reserve, and expunging the word male from the Constitution.
Surely, here and now, might poor M. Maréchal exclaim. The bitter
fruits of the original seed appear, and the sad question recurs, whether
women ought ever to have tasted of the alphabet.
Mr. Everett, perhaps without due caution, advocated, last summer, the
affirmative of this question. With his accustomed eloquence, he urged
on the attention of Suleiman Bey the fact of the equal participation of
the sexes in the public-school system of Boston, while omitting to
explain to him that the equality is of very recent standing. No doubt,
the eminent Oriental would have been pleased to hear that this public
administration of the alphabet