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injustice cannot reach: protected from it for ever: protected, not as Woman, but as Queen: as England's Symbol of Royalty: and called upon in that capacity, by the law officers of the Crown and "faithful lieges in Parliament assembled," to complete and perfect by her consent, the power of men's laws. Sign manual, and royal assent, necessary for perfecting and completing laws, under a female reign,—in a country where the signatures of married women are legally worthless; in a country where they cannot lay claim to the simplest article of personal property,—cannot make a will,—or sign a lease, and are held to be non-existent in law!
Too Utopian would be the dream, that instead of retrograding in the degree of protection afforded by the present code, — better and juster laws for women might be made in the reign of Queen Victoria! That in the exercise of the functions of sovereignty, and the fulfilment of Parliamentary forms, her royal assent might be recorded, as affixed to those measures of increased protection of the weaker sex, which are the distinctive marks of progressive civilization, as the contrary is the recognised feature of barbarism. The same reign in which the pen of a Macaulay has defended the intelligent capacity of Englishwomen, might surely see changed, a treatment based on the ancient laws of "Baron and Feme." And the Queen who has won England's love—in addition to her hereditary right to England's loyalty—and who has shown, on more than one occasion, that the sagacity of Elizabeth, and the courage of Cœur de Lion, are not incompatible with the most feminine devotion as Wife and Mother—might well resist, for her women-subjects, that contempt of womanhood, which our unequal laws imply. Leaving, in the blessing of better laws on this subject, a brighter track of light, than all the boasted progress of the "Golden Age," ruled over by the daughter of murdered Anne Boleyn.
In the form of our divorce, (since divorce there is), surely the first step should be first cancelled and altered! Our
