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    in order to be correct . Men have taken advantage of this state of mind in women to ill use them . Whatever it may be in effect , marriage is in legal form a bargain , a covenant , in which one of the principal stipulations is the observance of personal fidelity on both sides . No one will deny that chastity is a good thing , and

    in the case of the female , the penalty of transgression is rigidly exacted . But is it so with the male ? Does he not stray about the world and sin with , impunity , and is not the honour of the female impugned if she does but step across the threshold of her lord ? Is it not the essence of a bargain , that there be two parties to it , and if one transgress , is not the other absolved ? Legally ,

    it is so . But what is the morality of the matter ? That in the male the breach of this covenant is scarcely considered an offence , and in the female , it is visited with remorseless and unsparing severity . Is not this a most base and unmanly act of oppression ? All the answer which will be given by the males is , * We , having the power , have thus decreed it . '

    To make woman what she ought to be , and might be , marriage should be rendered a civil contract , capable of being dissolved like any other contract , with provisions to meet all results , whether of children or otherwise , fhe examples of murder , and other abhorrent things , springing from unequal marriages , would then disappear . The human affections cannot on all occasions be

    controlled ; in some cases it is not desirable they should . Those who are disappointed in their expectations with a human being , who has not proved to them what they could wish , ought not to be doomed to misery for a whole existence . I am aware that the proposal to make marriage a civil contract , dissoluble like any other contract , by the mutual agreement of the parties , will

    possibly shock the feeliugs of many well-meaning persons , who , not accustomed to think deeply on the subject , will be apt to think that the possibility of procuring a divorce would act like an epidemic , and that all married couples would instantly take advantage of it , merely for the sake of the experiment , just as all the world flocks to an unknown sight . I will not advert to the

    fact that divorces are to be procured at present , because , on account of the heavy expense attendant on them , they may be regarded merely in the light of an expensive indulgence for the very rich , like the bulls of the ancient Catholic church , by which nil who could afford to pay , might procure absolution for any darling vice they might choose to indulge in , while the poor were

    left to get over the matter as they could , and possibly fared as well as their masters after all . But I would ask , does the difficulty of divorce actually oblige persons who disagree with each other to live together even now ? Are there no such things as separations ? Are deeds for that purpose utterly unknown in lawyers * offices ? Aud , if not unknown , what are they but a species of illegal divorce ? Do the parties after that lead chaste lives ? if they

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    228 On the Condition of Women in E ? igland .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 228, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/12/