8th. Resolved, That in the general scantiness of compensation of woman's labor, the restrictions imposed by custom and public opinion upon her choice of employments, and her opportunities of earning money, and the laws and social usages which regulate the distribution of property as between men and women, have produced a pecuniary dependence of woman upon man, widely and deeply injurious in many ways; and not the least of all in too often perverting marriage, which should be a holy relation growing out of spiritual affinities, into a mere bargain and sale—a means to woman of securing a subsistence and a home, and to man of obtaining a kitchen drudge or a parlor ornament.
9th. Resolved, That sacred and inestimable in value as are the rights which we assert for woman, their possession and exercise are not the ultimate end we aim at; for rights are not ends, but only means to ends, implying duties, and are to be demanded in order that duties may be performed.
10th. Resolved, That God, in constituting woman the mother of mankind, made her a living Providence, to produce, nourish, guard, and govern His best and noblest work from helpless infancy to adult years. Having endowed her with faculties ample, but no more than sufficient, for the performance of her great work, He requires of her, as essentially necessary to its performance, the full development of those faculties.
11th. Resolved, That we do not charge woman's deprivation of her rights upon man alone, for woman also has contributed to this result; and as both have sinned together, we call on both to repent together, that the wrong done by both may, by the united exertions of both, be undone.
Fifth National Woman's Rights Convention, Cleveland, Ohio 1853.
1st. Resolved, That by Human Rights, we mean natural Rights, in contradistinction to conventional usages, and that because Woman is a Human being, she, therefore, has Human Rights.
2d. Resolved, because woman is a human being, and man is no more, she has, by virtue of her constitutional nature, equal rights with man; and that state of society must necessarily be wrong which does not, in its usages and institutions, afford equal opportunities for the enjoyment and protection of these Rights.
4th. Resolved, the common law, by giving the husband the custody of the wife's person, does virtually place her on a level with criminals, lunatics, and fools, since these are the only classes of adult persons over which the law-makers have thought it necessary to place keepers.
5th. Resolved, That if it be true, in the language of John C. Calhoun, that "he who digs the money out of the soil, has a right to it against the universe," then the law which gives to the husband the power to use and control the earnings of the wife, makes robbery legal, and is as mean as it is unjust.
6th. Resolved, That woman will soonest free herself from the legal disabilities she now suffers, by securing the right to the elective franchise, thus becoming herself a lawmaker; and that to this end we will petition our respective State Legislatures to call conventions to amend their Constitutions, so that the right to the elective franchise shall not be limited by the word "male."