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whether to keep it or spend it; whether to bestow it on their husbands or themselves, or their children, or elsewhere; therefore the law shall step in, assume in every case that a woman ought to settle money on herself and her children, and make that arrangement for her.
To this I answer—First, the weakness is assumed without proof, or without better proof than some coarse dictum of Lord Thurlow's. Women know how to hold their own where they are accustomed to act. Give them legal rights, and wait to see whether or no they will use them. Secondly, that the circumstances and needs of people vary infinitely, and to apply one Procrustean rule of law to all will produce, first misery, and then revolt against the law. Thirdly, that the proposed legal assumption of what it is right for a woman to do with a small sum of money is so unwise that the weakest woman commanded by the most tyrannical husband could not do worse with it. Fourthly, that it is somewhat hard measure for those who come complaining of their unprotected state to be told that they are quite right, but that they want a great deal more protection than they ask for, and shall for the future be protected not only against their husbands, but against themselves.
I will only now add that for myself I would sooner see do measure at all carried than one establishing a system of settlements; and I believe the gentlemen who have given years of labour to the ripening of opinion for the reception of Mr. Russell Gurney's Bill are of the same opinion.
