few women, capable of anything else, would, unless under an
irresistible entrainement, rendering them for the time insensible
to anything but itself, choose such a lot, when any other means
were open to them of filling a conventionally honourable place in
life: and if men are determined that the law of marriage shall be
a law of despotism, they are quite right, in point of mere policy,
in leaving to women only Hobson's choice. But, in that case, all
that has been done in the modern world to relax the chain on the
minds of women, has been a mistake. They never should have been
allowed to receive a literary education. Women who read, much more
women who write, are, in the existing constitution of things, a
contradiction and a disturbing element: and it was wrong to bring
women up with any acquirements but those of an odalisque, or of a
domestic servant. 

                              NOTES

[1]  Title-page of Mme de Stael's Delphine.

                           CHAPTER II

It will be well to commence the detailed discussion of the subject
by the particular branch of it to which the course of our
observations has led us: the conditions which the laws of this and
all other countries annex to the marriage contract. Marriage being
the destination appointed by society for women, the prospect they
are brought up to, and the object which it is intended should be
sought by all of them, except those who are too little attractive
to be chosen by any man as his companion; one might have supposed
that everything would have been done to make this condition as
eligible to them as possible, that they might have no cause to
regret being denied the option of any other. Society, however, both
in this, and, at first, in all other cases, has preferred to attain
its object by foul rather than fair means: but this is the only
case in which it has substantially persisted in them even to the
present day. Originally women were taken by force, or regularly
sold by their father to the husband. Until a late period in
European history, the father had the power to dispose of his
daughter in marriage at his own will and pleasure, without any
regard to hers. The Church, indeed, was so far faithful to a better
morality as to require a formal "yes" from the woman at the
marriage ceremony; but there was nothing to show that the consent
was other than compulsory; and it was practically impossible for
the girl to refuse compliance if the father persevered, except
perhaps when she might obtain the protection of religion by a
determined resolution to take monastic vows. After marriage, the
man had anciently (but this was anterior to Christianity) the power
of life and death over his wife. She could invoke no law against
him; he was her sole tribunal and law. For a long time he could
repudiate her, but she had no corresponding power in regard to him.
By the old laws of England, the husband was called the lord of the
wife; he was literally regarded as her sovereign, inasmuch that the
murder of a man by his wife was called treason (petty as
distinguished from high treason), and was more cruelly avenged than
was usually the case with high treason, for the penalty was burning
to death. Because these various enormities have fallen into disuse
(for most of them were never formally abolished, or not until they
had long ceased to be practised) men suppose that all is now as it
should be in regard to the marriage contract; and we are
continually told that civilisation and Christianity have restored
to the woman her just rights. Meanwhile the wife is the actual bond
servant of her husband: no less so, as far as legal obligation
goes, than slaves commonly so called. She vows a livelong obedience
to him at the altar, and is held to it all through her life by law.
Casuists may say that the obligation of obedience stops short of
participation in crime, but it certainly extends to everything
else. She can do no act whatever but by his permission, at least
tacit. She can acquire no property but for him; the instant it
becomes hers, even if by inheritance, it becomes ipso facto his. In
this respect the wife's position under the common law of England is
worse than that-of slaves in the laws of many countries: by the
Roman law, for example, a slave might have his peculium, which to
a certain extent the law guaranteed to him for his exclusive use.
The higher classes in this country have given an analogous
advantage to their women, through special contracts setting aside
the law, by conditions of pin-money, etc. : since parental feeling
being stronger with fathers than the class feeling of their own
sex, a father generally prefers his own daughter to a son-in-law
who is a stranger to him. By means of settlements, the rich usually
contrive to withdraw the whole or part of the inherited property of
the wife from the absolute control of the husband: but they do not
succeed in keeping it under her own control; the utmost they can do
only prevents the husband from squandering it, at the same time
debarring the rightful owner from its use. The property itself is
out of the reach of both; and as to the income derived from it, the
form of settlement most favourable to the wife (that called "to her
separate use") only precludes the husband from receiving it instead
of her: it must pass through her hands, but if he takes it from her
by personal violence as soon as she receives it, he can neither be
punished, nor compelled to restitution. This is the amount of the
protection which, under the laws of this country, the most powerful
nobleman can give to his own daughter as respects her husband. In
the immense majority of cases there is no settlement: and the
absorption of all rights, all property, as well as all freedom of
action, is complete. The two are called " one person in law, " for
the purpose of inferring that whatever is hers is his, but the
parallel inference is never drawn that whatever is his is hers; the
maxim is not applied against the man, except to make him
responsible to third parties for her acts, as a master is for the
acts of his slaves or of his cattle. I am far from pretending that