Note 93 — Chapter VII

There are many other instances in English law besides these mentioned above, wherein the inequality of justice, as regards the two sexes, is grossly apparent. I cannot here however dwell upon this wide and painful subject. The following detached extracts bearing on the subject are taken from a chapter of the work of an American writer on “The English Common Law:”—“In the eye of the law, female chastity is only valuable for the work it can do. The custody of children belongs to the father; the mother has no right of control. The father may dispose of them as he sees fit. If there be a legal separation, and no special order of the Court, the custody of the children (except the nutriment of infants) belongs legally to the father.” Except the nutriment of infants! here is a hint from the good God himself. Should we not think that the first time these words were written down, and men were compelled to see the natural dependence of the child upon the mother—to detect the obvious laws of nurture, natural and spiritual—the right of a good mother to her child would have made itself clear? In reference to the inequality of the divorce laws, this writer says—“In the late debate in Parliament on the new Divorce Bill, when a member objected to the introduction of a clause equalizing the relief of divorce to both sexes, he asked, ‘If this clause were adopted, I should like to know how many married men there would be in this House?’ He was answered by shouts of laughter! Would these men have laughed, think you, if they had been asked how many pure wives could be found in their family circles? and if not, would it have been because they were capable of estimating the value of womanly virtue? No! for that man cannot estimate womanly virtue who has never known the worth of manly purity. It would be the spectres of illegitimacy and social ruin staring them in the face, which would turn their lips so white! In France (says the Westminster Review) fidelity on the part of a husband is considered a sort of imbecility. What is thought of it in England? Does this scene in Parliament, printed for all our girls to read, suggest any higher view?” “The laughter of fools,” Solomon says, “is like the crackling of thorns under a pot;” but that laughter in the English House of Commons was more like what one might expect to hear—mingled with wailings—on approaching the gates of hell.