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Another fact, he has put his property out of his hands, so that he can say he has nothing. And should I sue him for my maintainance -sic-, I could get nothing.

His rich brother-in-law, George Hastings, did then support the three youngest children, mostly, and as Mr. Packard had so disposed of his wife and children, as to render them entirely independent of him for their support, scarcely any claimants were left upon his own purse, except his own personal wants.

And it is my honest opinion, that had the Sunderland people known of these facts in his financial matters, they would not have presented him with one hundred and thirteen dollars, as a token of their sympathy and esteem. Still, looking at the subject from their stand-point, I have no doubt they acted conscientiously in this matter.

I have never deemed it my duty to enlighten them on the subject, except as the truth was sought for from me, in a few individual isolated cases. I seldom associated with the people, and had sold none of my books among them. For, self-defense did not require me to seek the protection of enlightened public sentiment now that the laws protected my personal liberty while in Massachusetts.

But fidelity to the cause of humanity, especially the cause of "Married Woman," requires me to make public the facts of this notorious persecution, in order to have her true legal position known and fully apprehended.

And since my case is a practical illustration of what the law is on this subject -- showing how entirely destitute she is of any legal protection, except what the will and wishes of her husband secures her -- and also demonstrates the fact, that the common-law, everywhere, in relation to married woman, not only gravitates towards an absolute despotism, but even protects and sustains and defends a despotism of the most arbitrary and absolute kind -- therefore, in order to have her social position changed legally, the need of this change must first be seen and appreciated by the common people -- the law-makers of this Republic.

And this need or necessity for a revolution on this subject can be made to appear in no more direct manner, than by a practical case, such as my own furnishes.

As the need of a revolution of the law in relation to negro servitude was made to appear, by the practical exhibition of the Slave Code in "Uncle Tom's" experience, showing that all slaves were liable to suffer to the extent he did; so my experience, although like "Uncle Tom's," an extreme case, shows how all married women are liable to suffer to the same extent that I have.

Now justice to humanity claims that such liabilities should not exist in any Christian government. The laws should be so changed that such another outrage could not possibly take place under the sanction of the laws of a Christian government.

As Uncle Tom's case aroused the indignation of the people against the slave code, so my case, so far as it is known arouses the same feeling, of indignation against those laws which protect married servitude. Married woman needs legal emancipation from married servitude, as much as the slave needed legal emancipation from his servitude.

Again, all slaves did not suffer under negro slavery, neither do all married women suffer from this legalized servitude. Still, the principle of slavery is wrong, and the principle of emancipation is right, and the laws ought so to regard it. And this married servitude exposes the wife to as great suffering as negro servitude did.

It is my candid opinion, that no Southern slave ever suffered more spiritual agony than I have suffered; as I am more developed in my moral and spiritual nature than they are, therefore more capable of suffering. I think no slave mother ever endured more keen anguish by being deprived of her own offspring than I have in being legally separated from my own.

God grant! that married woman's emancipation may quickly follow in the wake of negro emancipation!

CHAPTER XII.
Why I Do Not Get a Divorce.

Because, in the first place, I do not want to be a divorced woman: but on the contrary, I wish to be a married woman, and have my husband for my protector; for I do not like this being divorced from my own home. I want a home to live in, and I prefer the one I have labored twenty-one years myself to procure, and furnished to my own taste and mind.

Neither do I like this being; divorced from my own children. I want to live with my dear children, whom I have borne and nursed, reared and educated, almost entirely by my own unwearied, indefatigable exertions; and I love them, with all the fondness of a. mother's undying love, and no place is home to me in this wide world without them.

And again, I have done nothing to deserve this exclusion from the rights and privileges of my own dear home; but on the contrary, my untiring fidelity to the best interests of my family for twenty-one years of healthful, constant service, having never been sick during this time so as to require a doctor's bill to be paid for me or my six children, and having done all the housework, sewing, nursing, and so forth, for my entire family for twenty-one years, with no hired help, except for only nine months, during all this long period of constant toil and labor. I say, this self-sacrificing devotion to the best interests of my family and home, deserve and claim a right to be protected in it, at least, so long as my good conduct continues, instead of being divorced from it, against my own will or consent.