AN APPEAL TO THE GOVERNMENT.
As my case now stands delineated by the foregoing narrative, all the States on this continent can see just where the common law places all married women. And no one can help saying, that any law that can be used in support of such a persecution, is a disgrace to any government—Christian or heathen. It is not only a disgrace, a blot on such a government, but it is a crime, against God and humanity, to let confiding, trusting woman, be so unprotected in law, from such outrageous abuses.
Mr. Packard has never impeached my conduct in a single instance, that I know of; neither has he ever charged me guilty of one insane act—except that of teaching my children doctrines which I believed, and he did not! This is all he ever alleges against me. He himself confirms the testimony of all my friends, that I always did discharge my household duties in a very orderly, systematic, kind, and faithful manner. In short, they maintain that I, during all my married life, have been a very self-sacrificing wife and mother, as well as an active and exemplary co-worker with him in his ministerial duties.
Now I have mentioned these facts, not for self-glorification, but for this reason, that it may be seen that good conduct, even the best and most praiseworthy, does not protect a married woman from the most flagrant wrongs, and wrongs, too, for which she has no redress in the present laws. If a man had suffered a tithe of the wrongs which I have suffered, the laws stand ready to give him redress, and thus shield him from a repetition of them. But not so with me. I must suffer not only this tithe, with no chance of redress, but ten times this amount, and no redress then. I even now stand exposed to a life-long imprisonment, so long as my husband lives, while I not only have never committed any crime, but on the contrary, have ever lived a life of self-sacrificing benevolence, ever toiling for the best interests of humanity.
Think again. After this life of faithful service for others, I am thrown adrift, at fifty years of age, upon the cold world, with no place on earth I can call home, and not a penny to supply my wants with, except what my own exertion secures to me. Why is this? Because he who should have been my protector, has been my robber, and has stolen all my life-long earnings. And yet the law does not call this stealing, because the husband is legally authorized to steal from the wife without leave or license from her! Now, I say it is a poor rule that don’t work both ways. Why can’t the wife steal all the husband has? I am sure she can’t support herself as well as he can, and the right of justice seems to be on our side, in our view.
But this is not what we want; we don’t wish to rob our husbands, we only want they should be stopped from robbing us. We just ask for the reasonable right to use our own property as if it were our own, that is, just as we please, just according to the dictates of our own judgment. And when we insist upon this right, we don’t want our husbands to have power to imprison us for so doing, as my husband did me. It was in this manner that I insisted upon my right to my property, with this fatal issue resulting from it.
While the discussions in our Bible-class were at the culminating point of interest, Mr. Packard came to my room one day and made me the following proposition: “Wife,” said he, “how would you like to go to your brother’s in Batavia, and make a visit?”
Said I, “I should like it very well, since my influenza has in some degree prostrated my strength, so that I need a season of rest; and besides, I should like an excuse for retiring from this Bible-class excitement, since the burden of these discussions lies so heavily upon me, and if it is not running from my post of duty, I should like to throw off this mental burden also, and rest for a season at least.”