Outspoken Essays On Social Subjects

under the weight of male oppression. Editors of newspapers, keen to scent out every drift of public fancy with the object of regaling their " constant readers," with what is tickling to their palates, will greedily print, in prominent positions and in large type letters expressive of the view in question, whilst they will boycott or, at best, publish in obscure corners any communication that ventures to criticize the popular theory or that adduces facts that tell against it. Were I to pen an impassioned diatribe, tending to prove the villainy of man towards woman, and painting in glowing terms the poor, weak victim of despotism, my description would be received with sympathetic approval. Not so, I fear, my simple statement of the unvarnished truth. Now, I think it will be admitted as a general principle, at least by all parties in the present day, that equality before the law, as it is termed, is the first condition of liberty, and that where you have respect of persons in this connection, you are destitute of theprimal elements of personal freedom. According to the popular theory just indicated, respecting the position of women, we might expect to find every law framed in such a way that women should invariably come off less than second best in any dispute with men, in short, that law would be enacted and administered solely to the advantage of men. Is this so in actual fact ? Let us first take our existing marriage laws. We shall find that in England...