Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/34

22 some such meeting as stood advertised in the English newspapers for Nov. 29, 1853, headed. "Persecuting Laws in Portugal, Tuscany, and Malta; the Earl of Shaftesbury in the chair." But in the English laws which wreck a woman's whole destiny; in the law which permits the most indecent and atrocious libel against her, without a chance of legal defence,—in the law which countenances and upholds far worse than cheating at cards, and renders null and void a contract signed by a magistrate, because that contract was made with his wife,—in the law which gives a woman's earnings even by literary copyright, to her husband,— in the whole framework, in short, of those laws by which her existence is merged in the existence of another (let what will be the circumstances of her case); and by which Justice in fact divests herself of all control and responsibility in the matter—England sees nothing worthy of remark.

With what a scornful retort might the nations we undertake to lecture, answer our busy-body meddling! "Protect your own women. Look at home for instances of tyranny, persecution, and unavailing appeals for justice. Do not trouble yourselves yet, about the denial of social rights to slaves, or those laws of Kentucky which seem in such harmony with your own; do not even pretend to shudder at the disgraceful chastisement inflicted on Austrian women, for what in their land is treason. Come to us when your magistrates do not make a profit of the law they administer; when your aristocracy are not guilty of violence and brutality to their wives, which they excuse by libels in your gazettes; when the daughters of your statesmen do not stand in your courts of law, ignobly baited for asserting just claims. That such things should occur, in your vainglorious land, may be only a private and individual wrong; but that such things should occur, with impunity,—uncontrolled and unpunished by law,—is no longer a private wrong, but a national disgrace."

I shall now give a narrative of my own case, as an example of what can be done under the English law of 1853. If the