Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/482

456 really the legal status of marriage, so far as the condition of the wife is concerned?

Susan B. Anthony.—One of servitude, and of the hardest kind, and just for board and clothes, at that, too. (Laughter and applause.)

Mr. .—And they frequently have to make and pay for their clothes, and board themselves—(renewed laughter)—and not only themselves, but board also the lord and master, who calls himself the head of the family. But that is not all of it. It is not cant; it is not popular phraseology, but it is the language of the law. The condition of the married woman is that of servitude. The law calls her husband "baron," and she is simply a woman—"feme." The law gives her to the man, not the man to her, nor the two mutually to each other. They become one, and that one is the husband—such as he is. Her name is blotted out from the living, or at best it is appended to that of the husband. She belongs to her master; all that she has belongs to him. All that she earns is his, because she is his. If she does anything that binds him, it is simply as his servant. If she makes a contract that is binding even upon herself, it is because he consents to it. She does not own anything; she does not own the children that are born of her. The husband exclusively controls them while living, and by his will he may, and often does, bequeath to somebody else the custody and care of them after his death. And the law which we men make enforces all this to-day. I trust that most of us are a great deal better than the law. If the wife of a man should suffer by an accident on a railroad, and suit should be brought to recover against the company for injury to her person, the suit brought by the husband would be upon the ground that his wife was his servant, and he had lost her service. If he did not, he could not recover.

Mrs. .—Is such the law in case of a daughter?

Mr. .—So far as that is concerned, where the daughter is a minor, it is the same as the case of a son a minor; but the wife is always the servant of the husband; she never graduates from him; she never becomes of age or arrives at the years of discretion. (Sotto voce.) If she had, she never would have entered into that condition. Miss Anthony would say the law pronounces the state of matrimony to be a condition of servitude for the wife in express terms. How does the XV. Amendment apply to her? Here is the previous condition of servitude provided for; and this XV. Amendment in its effect was but to enforce the XIV. in favor of persons held in a previous and, of course, a continuing condition of servitude. Does this really abrogate the servitude of the wife, and invoke in her favor the action of Congress? My distinguished brother, Butler, said this morning, that the clause relative to the previous condition of servitude applied only to widows. (Laughter.)

But, ladies and gentlemen, aside from badinage, for the subject is too grave and too solemn, it comes back to this thing. The Constitution of the United States solemnly declares that every person born and naturalized in the United States, and within its jurisdiction, are citizens; and that no State shall pass, or enforce a law to abrogate the privileges and immunities of citizenship. We do not need any XVI. Amendment. We need only intelligent, firm decisive, and deciding—reasonably brave courts, and to have a question made