Getting Hitched , livre ebook

GETTING HITCHED
ESSAYS AND EXCERPTS ON THE FIGHT FOR MARITAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN 1789 - 1883
By
VARIOUS



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"Either all human beings have equal rights, or none have any."
— Condorcet


Contents
OTHELLO A ND DESDEMONA
By George Bernard Shaw
A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT LAWS CONC ERNING WOMEN
By Barbara Leigh Sm ith Bodichon
ON THE ADMISSION OF WOMEN TO THE RIGHTS OF CITIZENSHIP
By the Marquis de Condorcet, Translated by Alice Drys dale Vickery
ENFRANCHISEM ENT OF WOMEN
By Harriet Taylor Mill
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE PROPERTY OF M ARRIED WOMEN
By Sir Henry Sumner Maine
MARRIAGE
By Annie Besant
THE LEGAL POSITION OF M ARRIED WOMEN
By Mrs. Anna Ga rlin Spencer
ON THE FORFEITURE OF PROPERTY BY M ARRIED WOMEN
By Art hur Hobhouse
WOMEN AND REPRESENTATIV E GOVERNMENT
By Millicent Gar rett Fawcett
A LETTER TO THE QUEEN
By The Hon. Mrs. Norton


OTHELLO AND DESDEMONA
By George Bernard Shaw
How strong was the feeling that a husband or a wife is an article of property, greatly depreciated in value at second-hand, and not to be used or touched by any person but the proprietor, may be learnt from Shakespeare. His most infatuated and passionate lovers are Antony and Othello; yet both of them betray the commercial and proprietary instinct the moment they lose their tempers. "I found you," says Antony, reproaching Cleopatra, "as a morsel cold upon dead Caesar's trencher." Othello's worst agony is the thought of "keeping a corner in the thing he loves for others' uses." But this is not what a man feels about the thing he loves, but about the thing he owns. I never understood the full significance of Othello's outburst until I one day heard a lady, in the course of a private discussion as to the feasibility of "group marriage," say with cold disgust that she would as soon think of lending her toothbrush to another woman as h er husband.
The sense of outraged manhood with which I felt myself and all other husbands thus reduced to the rank of a toilet appliance gave me a very unpleasant taste of what Desdemona might have felt had she overheard Othello's outburst. I was so dumfounded that I had not the presence of mind to ask the lady whether she insisted on having a doctor, a nurse, a dentist, and even a priest and solicitor all to herself as well. But I had too often heard men speak of women as if they were mere personal conveniences to feel surprised that exactly the same view is held, only more fastidiousl y, by women.
All these views must be got rid of before we can have any healthy public opinion (on which depends our having a healthy population) on the subject of sex, and consequently of marriage. Whilst the subject is considered shameful and sinful we shall have no systematic instruction in sexual hygiene, because such lectures as are given in Germany, France, and even prudish America (where the great Miltonic tradition in this matter still lives) will be considered a corruption of that youthful innocence which now subsists on nasty stories and whispered traditions handed down from generation to generation of school-children: stories and traditions which conceal nothing of sex but its dignity, its honor, its sacredness, its rank as the first necessity of society and the deepest concern of the nation. We shall continue to maintain the White Slave Trade and protect its exploiters by, on the one hand, tolerating the white slave as the necessary breakwater of marriage; and, on the other, trampling on her and degrading her until she has nothing to hope from our Courts; and so, with policemen at every corner, and law triumphant all over Europe, she will still be smuggled and cattle-driven from one end of the civilized world to the other, cheated, beaten, bullied, and hunted into the streets to disgusting overwork, without daring to utter the cry for help that brings, not rescue, but exposure and infamy, yet revenging herself terribly in the end by scattering blindness and sterility, pain and disfigurement, insanity and death among us with the certainty that we are much too pious and genteel to allow such things to be mentioned with a view to saving either her or ourselves from them. And all the time we shall keep enthusiastically investing her trade with every allurement that the art of the novelist, the playwright, the dancer, the milliner, the painter, the limelight man, and the sentimental poet can devize, after which we shall continue to be very much shocked and surprised when the cry of the youth, of the young wife, of the mother, of the infected nurse, and of all the other victims, direct and indirect, arises with its invariable refrain: "Why did nobo dy warn me?"
A C hapter from Getting M arried , 1908



A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT LAWS CONCERNING WOMEN
By Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
1854
LEGAL CONDITION OF UNMARRIED WOMEN OR SPINSTERS
A single woman
A single woman has the same rights to property, to protection from the law, and has to pay the same taxes to the Stat e, as a man.
No political franchise
Yet a woman of the age of twenty-one, having the requisite property qualifications, cannot vote in elections for members of Parliament.
Has a parochial vote
A woman duly qualified can vote upon parish questions, and for parish officers, overseers, surveyors, vestry clerks, &c.
Heiress
If her father or mother die intestate ( i.e. , without a will) she takes an equal share with her brothers and sisters of the personal property ( i.e. , goods, chattels, moveables), but her eldest brother, if she have one, and his children, even daughters, will take the real property ( i.e. , not personal property, but all other, as land, &c), as the heir-at-law; males and their issue being preferred to females; if, however, she have sisters only, then all the sisters take the real property equally. If she be an only child, she is entitled to all the intestate real and person al property.
No public employments
The church and nearly all offices under government are closed to women. The Post-office affords some little employment to them; but there is no important office which they can hold, with the single exception of that of Sovereign. The professions of law and medicine, [1] whether or not closed by law, are closed in fact. They may engage in trade, and may occupy inferior situations, such as matron of a charity, sextoness of a church, and a few parochial offices are open to them. Women are occasionally governors of prisons for women, overseers of the poor, and parish clerks. A woman may be ranger of a park; a woman can take part in the government of a great empire by buying East India Stock.
Domestic servant
A servant and a master or mistress are bound by a verbal or written agreement. If no special agreement is made, a servant is held by the common custom of the realm to be hired from year to year, and the engagement cannot be put an end to without a month's notice on either side.
Seduction
If a woman is seduced, she has no remedy against the seducer; nor has her father, excepting as he is considered in law as being her master and she his servant, and the seducer as having deprived him of her services. Very slight service is deemed sufficient in law, but evidence of some service is absolutely necessary, whether the daughter be of full age o r under age.
These are the only special laws concerning single women: the law speaks of men only, but women are affected by all the laws and incur the same responsibilities in all their contracts and do ings as men.
LAWS CONCERNING MARRIED WOMEN
Marriage
Matrimony is a civil and indissoluble contract between a consenting man and woman of compete nt capacity.
Prohibitions
These marriages are prohibited:—A widower with his deceased wife's sister; a widow with the brother of her deceased husband; a widower with his deceased wife's sister's daughter, for she is by affinity in the same degree as a niece to her uncle by consanguinity; a widower with a daughter of his deceased wife by a former husband; and a widower with his deceased wife's mother's sister. Consanguinity or affinity, where the children are illegitimate, is equally an impediment.
A lunatic or idiot cannot lawfully contract a marriage, but insanity after marriage does not make the marriage nu ll and void.
A lunatic may contract a marriage during a lucid interval. Deaf and dumb people may marry by signs. The consent of the father or guardians is necessary to the marriage of an infant ( i.e. , a person under twenty-one), unless the marriage takes place by banns. The consent of the mother is not necessary if there be a father or a guardian appoi nted by him.
Bigamy
A second marriage while a husband or wife is living is felony, and punishable by tra nsportation.
Breach of promise
An agreement to marry made by a man and woman who do not come under any of these disabilities is a contract of betrothment, and either party can bring an action upon a refusal to complet