nesses, carts, plows, and all other property that shall be on said farm at the time of my death. Item fourth: I give to my son, John Smith, Jr., my family horse, my buggy, harness, and saddle, and also eighty acres of wild land which J own in the State of Iowa, for which I have a patent. Item fifth: I give to my beloved husband, John Smith, Sen., the use of the house in which we live, together with my bed, so long as he shall live, or remain my widower; but in case he shall die, or get married, then it is my will that my house and bed shall descend to my said daughter, Tabitha. Recommending my said husband to her care, whom I make the sole executrix of this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all others.
Signed, sealed, and proclaimed this day of, 1853, in the presence of John Doe and Richard Roe.
Would any of you like such power as that to be placed in our hands? Yet, is it not as fair that married women should dispose of their property, as that married men should dispose of theirs? It is true, the power thus given to husbands is not always used to the detriment of women, and this is frequently urged in support of the law. But I reply, that law is made for extreme cases; and while any such statutes remain on the books, no good man will cease to exert himself for their removal. I ask the right to vote, not because it would create antagonism, but because it would create harmony. I want to do away with antagonism by removing oppression, for where oppression exists, there antagonism must exist also.
Ernestine L. Rose: In allusion to the law respecting wills, I wish to say that, according to the Revised Statutes of our State, a married woman hag not aright to make a will. The law says that wills may be made by all persons, except idiots, persons of unsound mind, married women, and infants. Mark well, all but idiots, lunatics, married women, and infants. Male infants ought to consider it quite an insult to be placed in the same category with married women. No, a married woman has no right to bequeath a dollar of the property, no matter how much she may have brought into the marriage, or accumulated in it. Nota dollar to a friend, a relative, or even to her own child, to keep him from starving. And this is the law in the nineteenth century, in the enlightened United States, under a Republic that declares all men to be free and equal.
Lucy Stone: Just one word. I think Mrs. Rose is a little mistaken; I wish to correct her by saying that of some States in —
Mrs. Rose: I did not say this was the universal law; I said it was the law in the State of New York.
Lucy Stone: I was not paying close attention, and must have been mistaken. In Massachusetts the law makes a married woman's will valid in two cases: the first is, where the consent of her husband is written on the will; the second, where she wills all she has to her husband, in which case his written consent is not deemed requisite.
Dr. Harriot K. Hunt spoke on the fruitful theme of taxation without representation! and read her annual protest[1] to the authorities of Boston
- ↑ See p. 259.
