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Modern Persecution, or Married Woman's Liabilities

From: Modern Persecution
Creator: Elizabeth P. W. Packard (author)
Date: 1873
Source: Available at selected libraries
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 1  Figure 2  Figure 3  Figure 4  Figure 5  Figure 6  Figure 7  Figure 8  Figure 9  Figure 10  Figure 11  Figure 12  Figure 13  Figure 14  Figure 15  Figure 16

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743  

In short, what I want is, protection in my home, instead of a divorce from it. I do not wish to drive Mr. Packard from his own home, and exclude him from all its rights and privileges -- neither do I want he should treat me in this manner, especially so long as he himself claims that I have always been a most kind, patient, devoted wife and mother. He even claims as his justification of his course, that I am so good a woman, and he loves me so well, that he wants to save me from fatal errors!

744  

It is my opinions -- my religious opinions -- and those alone, he makes an occasion for treating me as he has. He frankly owned to me, that he was putting me into an Asylum so that my reputation for being an insane person might destroy the influence of my religious opinions; and I see in one letter which he wrote to my father, he mentions this as the chief evidence of my insanity. He writes:

745  

"Her many excellences and past services I highly appreciate; but she says she has widely departed from, or progressed beyond, her former religious views and sentiments -- and I think it is too true!!"

746  

Here is all the insanity he claims, or has attempted to prove.

747  

Now comes the question: Is this a crime for which I ought to be divorced from all the comforts and privileges of my own dear home?

748  

To do this, that is to get a divorce, would it not be becoming an accomplice in crime, by doing the very deed which he is so desirous of having done, namely: banishment from the family circle for fear of the contaminating influence of my new views? Has a married woman no rights at all? Can she not even think her own thoughts, and speak her own words, unless her thoughts and expressions harmonize with those of her husband?

749  

I think it is high time the merits of this question should be practically tested on a proper basis, the basis of truth -- of facts. And the fact, that I have been not only practically divorced from my own home and children, but also incarcerated for three years in a prison, simply for my religious belief, by the arbitrary will of my husband, ought to raise the question as what are the married woman's rights, and what is her protection?

750  

And it is to this practical issue I have ever striven to force this question. And this issue I felt might be reached more directly and promptly by the public mind, by laying the necessities of the case before the community, and by a direct appeal to them for personal protection, instead of getting a divorce for my protection. I know that by so doing, I have run a great risk of losing my liberty again. Still, I felt that the great cause of married woman's rights might be promoted by this agitation; and so far as my own feelings were concerned, I felt willing to suffer even another martyrdom in this cause, if my sisters in the bonds of marital power might be benefited thereby.

751  

I want and seek protection as a married woman, not divorce, in order to escape the abuses of marital power -- that is, I want protection from the abuse of marital power, not a divorce from it. I can live in my home with my husband, if he will only let me do so; but he will not suffer it, unless I recant my religious belief. Cannot religious bigotry under such manifestations, receive some check under our government, which is professedly based on the very principle of religious tolerance to all?

752  

Cannot there be laws enacted by which a married woman can stand on the same platform as a married man, that is, have an equal right, at least, to the protection of her inalienable rights? And is not this our petition for protection founded in justice and humanity?

753  

Is it just to leave the weakest and most defenseless of these two parties wholly without the shelter of law to shield her, while the strongest and most independent has all the aid of the legal arm to strengthen his own?

754  

Nay, verily, it is not right or manly for our man government thus to usurp the whole legal power of self-protection and defense, and leave confiding, trusting woman wholly at the mercy of this gigantic power. For perverted men will use this absolute power to abuse the defenseless, rather than protect them; and abuse of power inevitably leads to the contempt of its victim.

755  

A man who can trample on all the inalienable rights of his wife, will by so doing come to despise her as an inevitable consequence of wrong doing. Woman, too, is a more spiritual being than a man, and is therefore a more sensitive being, and a more patient sufferer than a man; therefore she, more than any other being, needs protection, and she should find it in that government she has sacrificed so much to uphold and sustain.

756  

Again, I do not believe in the divorce principle. I say it is a "Secession" principle. It undermines the very vital principle of our Union, and saps the very foundation of our social and civil obligations.

757  

For example. Suppose the small, weak, and comparatively feeble States in our Union were not protected by the Government in any of their State rights, while the large, strong, and powerful ones had their State rights fully guaranteed and secured to them. Would not this state of the Union endanger the rights of the defenseless ones? and endanger the Union also? Could these defenseless States resort to any other means, of self-defense from the usurpation of the powerful States than that of secession? But secession is death to the Union -- death to the principles of love and harmony which ought to bind the parts in one sacred whole.

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