"Rome not only secured remarkable personal and proprietary rights to woman, but as Vestal Virgin she held the highest priestly office." p. 17

Chapter 2: Celibacy

"With woman's so-called "divine" (but rather demonic) self-sacrifice, Heloise chose to be deemed the mistress of Abelard rather than, by acknowledging their marriage, destroy his prospects of advancement in the church." p. 44-45

Chapter 3: Canon Law

"Christine of Pisa , a woman of learning and remarkable force of character - the first strictly literary woman of Western Europe - wrote a work in defense of her sex against the general libidinous character of the age." p. 61

"Canon law thus firmly established by act of Parliament, the union of church and state complete, England lost much of that civil freedom whose origin can be traced to the wise legislation and love of freedom inhering in two British queens, Martia and Boadicea ." pp. 67-68

"The Antonelli case referred to in the second chapter - in which the Countess Lambertini claimed heirship of Cardinal Antonelli's property as his daughter - was decided against her, not upon denial of her paternity (which was more fully proven), but because under church law this daughter had no claim upon her priestly father." p. 72 (for bio dict, see footnote ch. p # 42)

Chapter 4: Marquette

"In Scotland, this ransom [referring to demi-marc] became known as marquette - Margaret, wife of Malcolm Canmore (generally spoken of as Saint Margaret ) exercising her royal influence in 1057 against this degradation of her sex." p. 92

"In a letter to the National Woman Sufferage Convention at St. Louis (may 1879), Mrs. Josephine E. Butler , Honorable Secretary of the Federation and of the Ladies National Association for the Protection of Women, wrote: [quote follows regarding legalized prostitution in England]" p. 96

"God will take account of the deed not in eternity only, but in time - it may be in the next or even in the present generation." p. 97 (Gage believed in God. She may not have believed in religion, but she believed in God.)

"With such facts before us, we are not surprised that women are found who prefer the freedom and private respect accorded to a mistress rather than the restrictions and tyranny of the marital household. Mr. Taomage but followed in the footsteps of Anna Dickinson , who took upon herself an acquaintance with this class of women." p. 108

"In London alone with its population of five million, 100,000 women (one-fiftieth of its population) are thus enumerated, requiring for their support, 1,000,000 men (one-fifth of its population) for their support. Recognizing the fact that men, not women, were must sunken in vice -- the number leading vicious lives very much larger, the degradation of these men very much greater -- an Italian lady, Madam Venturi (at the International Conference of the British Continental and General Federation for the Abolition of Governmental Regulation of Prostitution), while making a brief eloquent address upon the funeral subject of rescue work, referred to the great importance of reclaiming men as the fundamental work upon which others should be built-up. Teach men, she said, to understand that he who degrades a fellow creature, commits a crime -- the crime of high treason against humanity.

"In quick response to those fitly-spoken words, the women of many countries combined in the work of man's reformation in an organization known as the White Cross Society, founded in 1886 by Miss Ellice Hopkins of England and now possessing branches in every part of the civilized world." p. 115

Chapter 5: Witchcraft

"As late as 1736, the persecution of her male compeers case Elizabeth Blackwell , an English woman physician, into prison for debt. Devoting herself even behind bars to her loved science, she prepared the first medical botany given to the world." P. 132

"It is, however, a noticeable fact that Madam La Chapelle , an eminent woman accoucher of France during the present century, and M. Chaussure revived the use of belladonna during parturition, thus acknowledging the scientific acquirements of serf women and "witches." " p. 134

"The women of a still more ancient period, the fame of whose magical powers has descended to the present time -- Circe, Medea, and Thracia -- were evidently physicians of the highest skill. The secret of compounding herbs and drugs left by Circe to her descendants gave them power over the most poisonous serpents. Chief among the many herbs, plants, and roots whose virtues were discovered by Medea, that of aconite stands preeminent. The Thracian nation took its name from the famous Thracia, whose medical skill and knowledge of herbs was so great that the country deemed it an honor to thus perpetuate her name." p. 135

"Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, obtained a divorce from her husband because of his connection with a succubus." p. 137

Discussing a witchcraft trial: "The persons tried were Ann Durant (of Drury), Susan Chander [and] Elizabeth Pacy ." p. 153

Discussing another witchcraft trial: "This Annie Whittle (alias Chattox ) was a very old, withered and decrepit creature, her sight almost gone, a dangerous witch of very long continuance, her lips ever chattering and walking (talking?) but no one knew what. She was next in order to that wicked, fierce bird of mischief, old Demdike." p. 155

Quoting some one else, Gage writes
" "A terrible summer for Salem village and its vicinity was that of 1692 -- a year of worse than pestilence or famine. Briget Bishop was hanged in June; Sarah Good, Sarah Wilder, Elizabeth Howe, Susanna Martin and Rebecca Nurse in July; George Burroughs, John Proctor, George Jacobs, John Willard and Martha Carrier in August; Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Wilmit Reed, Samuel Wordwell and Mary Baker in September; in which month Giles Corey, eighty-one years of age, was pressed to death under a board loaded with heavy stones -- not heavy enough however, to crush out life, until a day or two of lingering torture had intervened. Sarah Good's daughter Dorcas (between three and four years old), orphaned by her mother's execution, was one of a number of children who, with several hundred other persons, were imprisoned on suspicion of witchcraft. Many of these sufferers remained in a wretched condition, often heavily ironed for months, some upwards of a year, and several dying during this time. A child of seven, Sarah Carrier was called upon to testify as witness against her mother.

Some of the condemned, especially Rebecca Nurse, Martha Corey and Mary Easty, were aged women who had led unblemished lives and were conspicuous for their prudence, their charities and all domestic virtues."

So extended became the persecution for witchcraft that the king, at last aroused to the necessity of putting a stop to such wholesale massacre of his subjects, issued a mandate forbidding the putting of any more persons to death on account of witchcraft.

A remarkable family gathering took place at Salem (July 18, 1883) of two hundred persons who met to celebrate their descent from Mrs. Rebecca Nurse, who was executed as a witch at that place in 1692. She was a woman seventy years of age, the mother of eight children, a church member of unsullied reputation and devout habit. But all these considerations did not prevent her accusation, trial, conviction and death, although she solemnly asserted her innocence to the last. A reprieve granted by the governor was withdrawn through the influence of the church, and she was hung by the neck till she was dead. In order to give her body burial, her sons were obliged to steal it away by night, depositing it in a secret place known but to the family. Forty persons at the hazard of their own lives testified to the goodness and piety of Mrs. Nurse. Their names were inscribed upon the monument erected by her descendants, in 1892, to her memory." p. 158-159

"The first ecclesiastical convocation in America was a synod especially convened to sit in judgment upon the religious views of Mistress Anne Hutchinson, who demanded that the same rights of individual judgment upon religious questions should be accorded to woman which the Reformation had already secured to man. Of the eighty-two errors canvassed by the synod, twenty-nine were charged to Mistress Hutchinson, and retraction of them was ordered by the church. The state united with the church in opposition to Mistress Hutchinson, and the first real struggle for woman's religious liberty (not yet at an end) began upon this side of the Atlantic. The principle charge brought against Mistress Hutchinson was that she had presumed to instruct men. Possessed of a fine intellect and strong religious fervor, she had inaugurated private meetings for the instruction of her own sex, from sixty to a hundred women regularly gathering at her house to hear her criticism upon the Sunday sermon and Thursday lectures. These meetings proved so interesting that men were soon found also in attendance; and for these reasons, she was arbitrarily tried in November, 1637 before the Massachusetts General Court, upon a joint charge of sedition and heresy.

'In May of the same year a change had taken place in the civil government of the colony. Sir Henry Vane [who[, like herself, believed in the supreme authority of the in-dwelling spirit, having been superseded by John Winthrop as governor -- the latter sustaining the power of the clergy and himself taking part against her. Two days were spent by him and prominent clergymen in her examination, resulting in a sentence of imprisonment and banishment from the colony for having "traduced the ministers" and taught men, against the direct authority of the Apostle Paul who declared, "I suffer not a woman to teach." '

Thus the Old World restrictions upon woman, and their persecutions, were soon duplicated in the New World. Liberty of opinion became as serious a crime in America as in England. As here, as in Europe, the most saintly virtue and the purest life among women were not proof against priestly attack. Mistress Hutchinson was the first woman thus to suffer, many others were also persecuted. When Mary Fischer and Anne Austin - two Quaker women who had become famous for their promulgation of this heretical doctrine in many parts of the world - arrived in Boston harbor (July 1656) they were not at first permitted to land, but were ultimately transferred to the Boston jail where they were closely confined and, notwithstanding the heat of the weather, their one window was boarded up. Their persons were also stripped and examined for signs of witchcraft, but fortunately not a mole or spot could be found. Boston, "the bloody town,: was the center of this persecuting spirit, and every species of wanton cruelty upon woman was enacted. Stripped nude to the waist, they were tied to a whipping-post on the south side of King Street and flogged on account of their religious opinions.

But it was upon the famous "Common" that, for the crime of free speech, a half-nude woman with a newborn babe at her breast was thus publicly whipped. And it was upon the "Common" that Mary Dyer, another Quaker woman, was hung in 1659. Both she and Anne Hutchinson prophesied calamity to the colony for its unjust course, which was fulfilled when, in 1684, it lost its charter in punishment for its intolerance." pp. 159-161

Quoting another author, Gage writes
" ' . . . Margaret M___, was indicted for witchcraft in Pennsylvania in 1683, the law against it continuing in force until September 23, 1794. . . .In 1706, Grace Sherwood of Princess Anne County, Virginia, was tried for witchcraft.' " p. 162

"In 1692, the Grand Jury brought a bill against Mary Osgood of the province of Massachusetts Bay, as follows:

The powers for our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, present that Mary Osgood, wife of Captain John Osgood in the county of Essex, about eleven years ago in the town of Andover aforesaid, wickedly, maliciously and feloniously a covenant with the devil did make and signed the devil's book; and took the devil to be her God; and consented to serve and worship him; and was baptized by the devil and renounced her former Christian baptism; and promised to the devil both body and soul, forever, to serve him. By which diabolical covenant by her made with the devil she, the said Mary Osgood, is become a detestable witch against the peace of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, their crown and dignity and the laws in that case made and provided. A true bill.' " pp. 162-163

Chapter 6

"Mrs. Olive Davenport of St. Louis sued for a divorce upon the ground that her husband required her to obey him in all things. "Davenport's Rules for his Wife" were offered in evidence:

1. Not to speak to any person or allow any person to speak to her o the car except the conductor and porter in the discharge of their duty.

2. Go directly from depot in New York to Mrs. Haight's house, and occupy room with mother and sleep only in room.

3. Speak kindly and politely to Mrs. Haight, but not in a friendly or familiar manner. Say to her you do not wish to meet anyone in the house. Ask for a table to yourself with only your family or go somewhere else.

4. Never sing in the parlor or sing in your room when any person except your immediate family be present.

5. Never leave mother day or night for five minutes at a time for any reason whatsoever. Do not walk, ride or go anywhere without her, even with y our own brother.

6. Do not call on any person whatsoever, and allow no one who may call on you to see you unless they be your brothers or their wives. Do not speak to any person you may meet whom you have not known in the past.

7. Write every night to me a full, truthful and exact account of everything you have done, where you have been, to whom you have spoken, and whom you have seen. This must be done every night.

Let nothing but sickness or death prevent your keeping these rules, for I will excuse no breach on any account.

Do not leave New York even for one hour without my permission, except to Brooklyn or Harlem.

If my wife cannot keep these rules in word and spirit, I desire never to see her again.

Benjamin R. Davenport

The divorce suit showed the married pair to have been separated once before, Mrs. Davenport, unable to bear her husband's tyranny, returning to her mother's house. At that time her husband required her to eat only what he directed and to wear only those clothes he bade her wear, selecting even the color of her ribbons. The only fault he had to find with her was that she "talked back," which has always been deemed an unpardonable crime in woman; one for which the ducking stool and scold's bridle were invented.

After she left him, Mr. Davenport wrote affectionate letters to his wife, calling her the sweetest and best of women, imploring her to return. She relented and lived with him once more, but her husband again put his rules in force. Mr. Davenport's treatment of his wife is by no means exceptional." pp. 183-184

"To the present time, the lenient sentence imposed upon the English husband who beats his wife is such as to invite a repetition of the offense. Knocking a wife down, beating and bruising her with a poker are rights secured to the husband under present English law.

'A man named Heferon, at Rotherham, finding his wife had gone to some place of which he disapproved, knocked her down and beat her violently with a poker. She bled from both ears, her throat was scratched, and she was badly bruised on her back and arms. Mr. Justice Day practically told the jury to acquit. he said the case ought not to have come before them, and he suggested that the prisoner had been merely exercising that control over his wife which was still sanctioned by the law of England. The jury acquitted promptly, as directed.' " p. 187

"The suggestive and usual place of storing the ducking stool, when not in use, was the churchyard. Almost every English town of importance possessed one. Their use was continued until the present century. The Leominster ducking stool, still preserved, was used in 1809 by order of the magistrates, upon a woman named Jane Corran, who received her punishment near Kenwater Bridge. As late as 1817 Sarah Leeke was wheeled around town in this chair, although the lowness of the stream prevented the ducking she would otherwise have received." p. 190

"The English Women's Suffrage Journal of December 1, 1883, reported such a case:

'November 13th, 1883, Betsy Wardle was indicted for having, on the fourth of September 1882, married George Chusmall, her former husband being alive. The prisoner pleaded guilty but said her former husband gave her no peace and sold her for a quart of beer. She imagined this was a legal transaction and that she could marry again. The second husband asked how he came to marry the prisoner. he answered "Well, I [bought] her." The judge said, "You are not fool enough to suppose you can buy another man's wife?" on which he replied, "I was."

Mr. Swift asked his lordship not to pass a severe sentence. The prisoner imagined that because she had been sold for sixpence, there was nothing criminal in marrying again. His lordship said it was absolutely necessary to pass some punishment on her to teach her that a man had no more right to sell his own wife than his neighbor's wife or cow or ox or ass or anything that was his.

The reason given by the judge for punishing the woman is extremely suggestive of woman's condition under the law. The wife who had been sold, the innocent victim of this masculine transaction, was sentenced to a week's imprisonment with hard labor while the man who sold her and the man who bought her escaped without punishment or censure. The judge, in quoting the tenth commandment, graded the wife with the ox and the ass in the belongings of a man, the decision thus ranking her with the cattle of the stable.' " pp. 192-193

"

The National Woman Suffrage Association, through this committed, respectfully present to you a protest against that clause of the anti-polygamy measure passed by Congress which, whether in the Edmunds bill of the Senate or the Tucker substitute of the House, disfranchises the non-polygamous women of Utah.

The clause relating to the disfranchisement of women has no bearing on the general merits of the end sought to be attained by the measure, since Mormon men are the majority of the voters of the territory.

The non-polygamous women of Utah have committed no crime. Disfranchisement is reserved by the United States government for arch traitors. Justice forbids that such a penalty should be inflicted on innocent women.

Non-polygamous Mormon women and the Christian women of Utah being thus disfranchised -- the former for their opinions and the latter for the opinions of the former -- a precedent is established subversive of the fundamental principles of our government and threatening the security of all citizens.

If Congress deems it necessary to disfranchise citizens because of injurious beliefs, discrimination between sexes in manifestly unjust.

It has been held by the foremost statesmen of the nation that the right of suffrage, once exercised, becomes a vested right which cannot be taken away. Gratz Brown once said in the Senate of the United States, that if the idea that suffrage could be taken away at pleasure once crystallized in the minds of the people, it would "right the death inell of American liberty." Mr. Vest of Missouri, on the 25th day of this month, said on the floor of the Senate: "Suffrace once given can never be taken away. Legislatures and conventions may do everything else; they never can do that. When any particular class or fraction of the community is once invested with this privilege it is fixed, accomplished and eternal."

Thus every argument for justice, equal legislation and the safety of our republican form of government calls for the defeat of this clause.

We therefore respectfully urge you, as Guardians of the rights of all American citizens, to veto any measure coming before you which disfranchises the women of Utah.

Lillie Devereux Blake
Matilda Joslyn Gage
Caoline Gilkey Rogers
Mary Seymour Howell
Clara B. Colby
Sarah Miller
Elizabeth Boynton Harbert
Harriette R. Shattuck
Louisa Suthworth
Committee "
pp. 194-195

"It was the Latin races rather than the Scandinavian or Teutonic, that first essentially degraded woman. The Riparian Franks, preeminent as lovers of liberty, were the first who broke away from the rule of this law. Both the Scandinavians and the Teutons possessed prophetic women, or priestesses to whom the highest deference was shown. The Teutonic races were early noted for the high respect in which they held women, a respect closely bordering upon veneration. The greatest deference was shown in their opinions even upon war, the chief business of men's lives. Victoria received the title of "Mother of Camps" and was an especially venerated person. Veleda, by superior genius, directed the consoles of the nation and for nine years prevented the progress of the imperial armies of Rome. The most momentous questions of state and religion were submitted to woman's divine judgment." p. 197

"The low estimate of women in England as late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is shown in its literature, especially that emanating form its great universities. The betrayal of women formed the basis of story and song. Not content with portraying their won vices, these men did not hesitate to put a plea against chastity in the mouths of mere children. Of such a character is A Ballad emanating from this source, but professing to have been "composed by Miss Nelly Pentwenzle, a young lady of 15,: to be sung to the tune of Scraps of Pudding." p. 203

"France, under frequent changing names and forms of government and with a broader general recognition each year of human rights, is yet very closely allied to the barbarism of the Middle Ages in its treatment of woman and its conception of her natural rights. This was shown even during the revolution of 1787, of which Madame Roland and Charlotte Corday were such central heroic figures." p. 208

"But French disregard for the rights of woman, as already shown, far preceded the Code Napoleon. That system but legally emphasized the low estimate of the feminine we have traced through the salic, feudal, and witchcraft periods. Louis VII, referring to the number of girls born in his dominions, requested his subjects to pray unto God that he should accord them children of the better sex. Upon the birth of his first child, Margaret (who afterward married Henry Courtmantel of England), his anger was so great that he would not look at her. He even refused to see his wife. He afterwards accorded an annual pension of three livres to the woman who first announced to him the birth of a son." p. 210

"Several notable instances of morganatic marriages have occurred within the present century. It is but a few years since the Grand Duke, Louis IV of Hesse-Darmstadt (son-in-law of Queen Victoria) made a morganatic marriage with Madame de Kalamine, whose lover he was long known to have been and with whom he had previously lived outside of this relation -- she having borne him several children. From the high position of the morganatic husband and because of the previous relationship of the parties, this marriage became the talk of all Europe and, to some extent, of the United States. Queen Victoria herself did not escape criticism (notwithstanding the prudery for which she is famed) because of her entertaining the Grand Duke at Windsor soon after this marriage - unaccompanied by his wife -- for the purpose, it was intimated, of placing him under the influence of Princess Beatrice. The very fact of such suggestion - whether true or not, as well as the fact that Queen Victoria (universally conceded a prude in reference to the infractions of the moral law by those of her own sex) received the Grand Duke at her especial home of Windsor soon after his morganatic marriage -- is a vivid commentary upon the two codes of morals extant in Christendom and their influence even upon woman herself." pp. 212-213

"To the wise statesmanship of the Czarina Olga is the unchanging plan of that country for the ultimate possession of Constantinople due. Visiting the Patriarch of the East during the tenth century, she at once perceived the vast importance of Constantinople to the power desiring universal domination; the possession of that city giving control of the Dardanelles, of Asia Minor, and [of] Europe itself. Thenceforth she sought its annexation or seizure and her policy has became that of the Russian nation which, for 800 years, has made the ultimate possession of Constantinople the great object of its ambition. Nor has Olga's statesmanship less influenced the entire European continent, the allied powers constantly struggling to defeat Russia's aggressive plan through maintenance of the "sick man" upon his throne." p. 215

" Lady Varney gives the chorus a song in the "Lament of a Young Russian Bride," which portrays the father-in-law's part.

Chorus,

'Thumping, scolding, never lets his daughter sleep,
Up you slattern! Up you sloven, sluggish slut! ' " p. 217-218

"In 1890, the press of New York City reported the case of Mrs. R. Bassman, who was summoned to appear before the Surrogate Court for a funeral debt. Being in confinement, she was unable to appear. Thereupon an order for her arrest for Contempt of Court was issued, and, while still unrecovered from her illness, she was arrested and incarcerated in Ludlow Street jail. Her newly-born babe, deprived of its mother's care, sickened and died. And this is part of Christian civilization for woman, in nearly two thousandth year of its existence." p. 220

"In England as late as 1876, the case of a Mrs. Cochrane, who had lived apart from her husband for years (and showing another phase of property law in the wife) came up before Judge Coleridge. Her character was not at all impeached, but she indulged in amusements which her husband considered reprehensible, and, thorough stratagem, she was brought to his lodgings and there kept a prisoner. A writ of habeas corpus being sued out, the husband was compelled to bring her before the court of the Queen's Bench. The decision of the judge -- tendered in favor of the husband's right of forcible detention -- was declared by him to be upon the ground that English law virtually considered the wife as being under the guardianship of her husband, not a person in her own right, and this distinctly upon the ground of her perpetual infancy. She must be restored to her husband.

As late as 1886, the Personal Rights Journal of England called attention to the suit of a clergyman for the restitution of conjugal rights" and custody of child. The wife, not being able to live in agreement with the husband, had taken her child and left him. a decree for such restitution having been pronounced by court, the husband, Rev. Joseph Wallis, advertised for his absconding wife, Caroline Wallis, offering one hundred pounds reward for such information as should lead to her discovery.

Whereas, a Decree was pronounced in the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice on the 5th day of June, 1886, in the suit of Samuel Joseph Wallis versus Caroline Wallis, for the restitution of conjugal rights and for custody of the child, May Wallis, to the petitioner, the said Samuel Joseph Wallis. And whereas it has been ascertained that the said Caroline Wallis has lately been seen at Whitstable and the Neighborhood,

That the above Reward will be paid to any Person or Persons who shall give such information as will lead to the discovery of the whereabouts of the said Caroline Wallis, and the recovery, by the said S. J. Wallis, of the custody of the said Child.

Information to be sent to me, Richard Howe Brightman, of Sheerness, Kent, Solicitor to the said Samuel Joseph Wallis. " pp. 223-224

"The celebrated M. Godin, founder of the cooperative Familistere at Guise, was married in 1886 under civil form to a lady member of the French League for the Rights of Women and thus announced the marriage to their friends:

'M. Godin, manufacturer [and] founder of Familistere and Madame Marie Godin, nee Moret, his secretary and co-laborer in the work of the Familistere and in the propagation of social reform, have the honor of announcing to you the purely civil marriage which they contracted at Guise, the 14th day of July 1886, that they might manifest to all their union and the common purpose of all the efforts of their lives.' " p. 225

Chapter 7: Polygamy

["Brigham] Young's daughter, Dora, with five of her sisters, was expelled a few years since from the Mormon Church for having gone to law with certain of the Mormon brethren who attempted to rob them of their patrimony. The elders, realizing the injury these women might o for the church, sent a couple of teachers to interview Dora, invoking her father's name to influence her [to drop] the suit and return to the church. Dora had been aroused by a sense of the iniquity of the church, through hearing its elders declare upon oath that they knew nothing of polygamous marriage ceremonies being performed, while the same day of this denial no less than fourteen such marriages had taken place at the Endowment House. Referring to the conscientious belief held by many women of the necessity of polygamous marriage in order to secure the sanctification requisite for their salvation, Dora said:

'Since my eyes have been opened, I sometimes ask myself how I could ever possibly have regarded the horrible and licentious practices of which I was aware, and the terrible things I have witnessed, with anything but horror? And yet I was brought up to consider these things right and I thought nothing about them; just as I suppose children brought up where human sacrifices are offered learn to regard such sacrifices as right and to look upon them with indifference.' " p. 237

"The experience of Caroline Owens - whose suit for bigamy against her polygamous husband, John D. Miles, appealed from the Supreme Court of Utah to the Supreme Court of the United States, a suit implicating Delegate Cannon of the Congress of the United States in its tale of wrong - presents another phase. Miss Owens was an English girl acquainted with Miles from her childhood. He had immigrated to Utah, but in England on a visit he urged her to return with him, promising her marriage when they reached Salt Lake City. She questioned him as to polygamy. He replied that a few old men were allowed more than one wife, but that young men like himself had but one, although he spoke of one Emily Spencer who had expressed affection for him but whom he had no intention of marrying.

Upon reaching Salt Lake City, Miss Owens stayed at the house of United States Delegate George Q. Cannon, where but one wife resided. When the day of the wedding arrived, she went through the ceremonies of the Endowment House, lasting from ten o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon, and had been wedded to John D. Miles. She says: 'I can never tell the horrors of the next few hours. Before that day was over my love had turned to burning hatred. When we started to go home, Miles told me that he had invited Emily Spencer to our wedding reception. I said that if she came to the house, I should leave. He replied he was now master. I went to my room and dressed for the reception, which took place at Cannon's other house, where he kept his three wives. When I went down, there was a crowd there, among the rest a plain looking girl in a calico dress, to whom I was introduced. It was Emily Spencer. I did not speak to her. after a while they wanted to dance, and asked me to play. Emily Spencer sat on a piano stool. I told her to get up. Miles came forward and said, "Sit still, Emily Spencer, my wife." I felt as though I had been shot. I said, "Your wife! Then what am I?" He said, "You are both my wives." All at once my shame flashed over me. Here I was dishonored, the polygamous wife of a Mormon. I ran out of the house, bent only on escape, I did not think where. I could not do it, though, for Miles and young Cannon, a son of the Delegate, ran after me and dragged me back.

We had been intending to stay at the house all night, but I stole away and returned to the other house, where I had been living the three weeks since my arrival from England. I noticed there was no key in the lock, but shot a little bolt and piled chairs against the door. I cried myself to sleep. The next thing I knew, I don't know what time it was, Miles stood i the room and was locking the door on the inside. I screamed, because Mrs. Cannon and Miles step-mother had been living in the house with me. Miles said I need not take on, for Brother Cannon had anticipated that I would make trouble and had the house cleared of everyone else. I found out that it was so. He told me that I might as well submit; there was no law here to control the saints. There was no power on earth that would save me.'

She was subjected to great brutality, again and again beaten and exhorted to bear her condition patiently as a sister to be exalted. Because of her rebellious spirit she was hectored and threatened, stoned, jeered at and abused in many ways - all under pretense of religion - until after three weeks of such matrimonial life she escaped and among the "Gentiles" found rest and help. She speaks of polygamous wives as half-clad, poorly fed, toiling life serfs, without hope, under the chains of a religious despotism." pp. 238-240

"The late Helen H. Jackson - who had thoroughly investigated the Mormon question - writing of polygamy in The Century, said:

'The doctrine, to be completely studies, must be considered both from the man's point of view and the woman's; the two being for reasons, not identical. but it is the woman's view of it, her belief and position in regard to it, which are most misrepresented and misunderstood by the world. If the truth were known, there would be few persons in whose minds would be any sentiment except profound pity for the Mormon woman -- pity, moreover, intensified by admiration. There has never been a class or sect of women since the world began who have endured for religion's sake a tithe of what has been and is, and forever must be endured by the women of the Mormon Church. It has become customary to hold them as disreputable women, light and loose, unfit to associate with the virtuous, undeserving of any esteem. Never was greater injustice committed.

The two doctrines that most help the Mormon woman to endure the suffering of living in plural marriage are the doctrines of preexistence and of the eternal continuance of the patriarchal order. The mere revelation from Joseph Smith to the effect that polygamy was to be permitted and was praiseworthy and desirable would never, alone, have brought the Mormon women to hearty acceptance of the institution. They are taught -- and most unquestioningly believe -- that the universe is full of spirits waiting, and waiting impatiently, to be born on this earth. These spirits have already passed through one stage of discipline and probation and are to enter upon a second one here.

The Rev. Edward Beecher once published a book setting forth a similar doctrine. The Mormon doctrine goes [further] than Dr. Beecher's inasmuch as it teaches that these spirits may select, of their own free will, where and how they will be born into their earthly probation; and that they are, one and all, anxious to be born in the Mormon Church, as the one true Son where alone are to be found safety and salvation. They also believe that the time is limited during which these spirits can avail themselves of this privilege of being born into Zion. They look for the return of Jesus Christ to the earth before long and for the establishment then of the millennial dispensation, after which no more of the spirits can be reborn and reclaimed - hence the obligation resting upon every faithful Mormon woman to bring into the world, in the course of her life, as many children as possible. Not only does she thus contribute to the building up and strengthening of the church, but she [also] rescues souls already existing and in danger of eternal death.

It is easy to sneer at this doctrine as inconceivable rubbish -- and, in truth, it must be admitted that it is hard to conceive of an educated mind receiving it -- but it is no more absurd or [unprovable] than hundreds of kindred speculations and notions which have been devised, preached and passionately believed in times past. Neither has the absurdity or non-absurdity, falsity or truth of the belief, anything to do with our judgment of its believers.' " pp. 240 - 241

:These various bodies are parts of the "Christian party in politics." Nor is this party of recent origin. As early as 1827 or 1828, when composed almost entirely of Protestants, its designs upon the life of the republic were noted by the eloquent Scotch reformer, Frances Wright." p. 247

Chapter VIII: Women and Work

"And when Sir James Simpson, physician to Queen Victoria, employed them at the birth of the later princes and princesses, he was assailed by pulpit and press as having sacrilegiously thwarted "the curse." " p. 252

"The facts ascertained were of the most horrible character, no improvement being shown in the past fifty years [with] men and women, boys and girls, still working together in an almost naked condition.

'In the Lancashire coal fields lying to the north and west of Manchester, females are regularly employed in underground labor, and the brutal conduct of the men and the debasement of the women are well described by some of the witnesses examined by them.

Betty Harris, one of the numerous persons examined )aged thirty-seven), drawer in a coal pit, said: "I have a belt around my waist and a chain between my legs to the truck and I go on hands and feet. The road is very steep and we have to hold by a rope and, when there is no rope, by anything we can catch hold of. There are six women and about six boys or girls in the pit I work in. It is very wet, and the water comes over our clog-tops always and I have seen it up to my thighs. My clothes are always wet."

Patience Keershaw (aged seventeen), another examined, said: "I work in the clothes I now have on (trousers and ragged jacket). The bald place upon my head is made by the thrusting cones. The getters I work for are naked, except for their caps. They pull off their clothes. All the men are naked."

Margaret Hibbs (aged eighteen), said: "My employment after reaching the wall-face is to fill my bagie or stype with two-and-a-half or three-hundred weight of coal. I then hook it on to my chain and drag it through the seam, which is from twenty-six to twenty-eight inches high, till I get to the main road -- a good distance -- probably 200 to 400 yards. The pavement I drag over is wet, and I am obliged at all times to crawl on my hands and feet with my bagie hung to the chain and ropes. It is sad, sweating, sore and fatiguing work, and frequently maims the women."

Gage continues with more of the testimony.' " p. 253 (I found the original on the Internet: it is Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1842, vol XV, pp. 84 and Vol XVII, p. 108 at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1842womenminers.html) "The late Jennie Collins of Boston, one of the earliest persons in the United States to devote herself to this branch [helping poor women who prostitute themselves because they cannot earn sufficient wages to maintain life without resorting to prostitution] of the "woman question," said:

'It is easy for a young girl to obtain employment; but let her go where she will, even in government positions at Washington, she will find her innocence assailed if not made the price at which she gets a chance to work. And that same government does not pay its women employees the same amount of wages for the same kind of work.' " p. 256

"And today, Africa, "The Dark Continent," is the children's paradise, says Mrs. French Sheldon, the wonderful woman explorer who carried peace with her everywhere and whose investigations in that part of the world exceed in value those of Livingstone or Stanley. She says:

'In all these months among the children every day, I never saw a child struck and I heard a child cry but twice while on the Dark Continent.' " p. 266

"The peace made by the Sabines with the Romans, after the forcible abduction of the Sabine maidens, had for one of its provisions that no labor except spinning should be required from wives." p. 272

Chapter 9: The Church of To-day

"The Catholic and Calvanistic doctrines of woman's inferiority of position and intellect -- taught form the pulpit -- are by no means relegated to past centuries, but continue to be publicly taught by the Protestant clergy of every sect as fully as by their Catholic and Greek brethren. The first National Woman Suffrage Convention which assembled in Washington (1869) -- having invited Rev. Chaplain Gray of the House to open its proceedings with prayer -- he referred in this petition to woman as an after-thought of the Creator, an inferior and secondary being, called into existence for the special benefit of man. The noble old Quakeress, Lucretia Mott, sitting in an attitude of devout attention, suddenly raised her head, and at the close of the prayer, Bible in hand, she read aloud the account of the creation (Genesis 1:27-28): woman and man equals, both having been given dominion over nature." p. 275

"That the church of the nineteenth century possesses the same character as that of the fourteenth, the twelfth and fifth, was forcibly illustrated during the early days of the anti-slavery struggle, especially in its persecution of the women who took part in that reform. Lucretia Mott and Ester Moore were integral members of the American Anti-slavery Society, having assisted in the convention which organized this society in 1833. Shortly afterward the Grimke sisters of South Carolina, Sarah and Angelina - convinced of the sinfulness of slavery -- left their delightful home in Charleston and, coming North, spoke eloquently through Massachusetts against those wrongs of which they themselves had been witness." p. 276-277

"With one noble exception, this mandate of the church and clergy had [the] effect, for a time, in silencing woman's plea for the slave. For seven long years the voice of but one woman, Abby Kelly, was heard upon the anti-slavery platform and the persecution of the church made her life one long martyrdom." pp. 278-279

"The unity and peace of the World's Anti-slavery convention (London 1840) was disturbed by the hostility of several clergymen and a few bigoted laymen of the same spirit who objected to the recognition of the women delegates sent by several American societies among whom were Lucretia Mott and Ester Moore, members of the parent organization. after a spirited discussion, their admission was decided to be a violation of the ordinances of Almighty God and their credentials were rejected." p. 279

Quoting Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler's New York Evangelist

"Their most eloquent and logical advocate, Dr. Herrick Johnson, is intensely opposed to the Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton doctrines of woman suffrage, as I am." p. 280

"A striking instance of the effect of this law occurred in England within the past few years when a lady successively married two brothers -- the first, a natural son of the Earl of Waldegrave, the second, his legitimate son. The father (although not recognized as such in law) left the bulk of his property to his natural son; the title -- over which he had no power of alienation -- descending to the son born under authority of the church. The first husband dying, the lady afterward married the legitimate son, thus becoming first, "Mrs." Waldegrave and afterward "Lady" Waldegrave -- securing both fortune and title by her marriage with the un-recognized and law-recognized sons of the same father, and breaking neither the law of state or church in so doing." p. 288

"The Methodist Church still refuses to place woman upon an equality with man either in the ministry or in lay representation, a few years since taking from them their previous license to preach. And this despite the fact that Mrs. Van Cott, a woman evangelist, did such severe work during a period of fourteen years as to seriously injure her health. And so successful where her ministrations that she brought more converts to the church than a dozen of its most influential bishops, during the same time. To such bitter lengths has opposition to woman's ordination been carried in that church that Rev. Mr. Buckley (editor of The Christian Advocate), when debating the subject, declared that he would oppose the admission of the mother of our Lord into the ministry -- the debate taking on most unseemly form.

Miss Oliver, who had long been pastor of the Willoughby Street Church in Brooklyn, appealed to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at its session in Cincinnati (May, 1880) for full installment and ordination, saying:

'I am sorry to trouble our dear mother church with any perplexing question, but it presses me also, and the church and myself must decide something. I am so thoroughly convinced that the Lord has laid commands upon me in this direction, that it becomes with me really a question of my own soul's salvation.'

She then gave the reasons that induce her to believe that she is called to pastoral work, and concluded:

'I have made almost every conceivable sacrifice to do what I believe to be God's will. Brought up in a conservative circle in new York City that held it a disgrace for a woman to work, surrounded with the comforts and advantages of ample means and trained in the Episcopal Church, I gave up home, friends and support, went counter to prejudices that had become second nature to me, worked several years to constant exhaustion and suffered cold, hunger and loneliness. The things hardest for me to bear were laid upon me. For two months my own mother would not speak to me. When I entered the house, she turned and walked away, and when I sat at the table she did not recognize e. I have passed through tortures to which the flames of martyrdom would be nothing, for they would end in a day. And through all this time and today, I could turn off to positions of comparative ease and profit. I ask you, fathers and brethren, tell me what would you do in my place? Tell me what would you wish the church to do toward you, were you in my place? Please only apply the Golden Rule and vote in conference accordingly.' " pp. 296-297

"It was not until the seventh day of the conference that the question of woman's admission was decided in the negative, and the great Methodist Episcopal Church put itself upon record as opposed to the recognition of more than one-half of its members. The women delegates were not even allowed seats upon the floor during the debate. Mrs. Nind, president of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, arose to vote but was not counted, although the Woman's Foreign Missionary societies were making converts where men cannot reach -- in the zenanas." p. 301

" Frances Wright -- that clear-seeing, liberty-loving, Scotch Freethought woman-- noted the dangerous purpose and character of the Christian party in politics even as early as 1829." p. 305

"The protective theory reached its lowest depth for woman by an attack upon her already vested rights of the ballot in the former territory -- now state -- of Washington on the Pacific coast, in [the] case of Nevada M. Bloomer (a woman) against John Wood and others, to have the women of that territory deprived of their already existing right of suffrage." p. 319

Writings on Eve and the creation story in Genesis

"And unto Adam the Lord said: "Cursed be the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thous shalt eat the herbs of the field; in the sweat of they face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for dust thou art and into dust thou shalt return." Genesis 3: 17-19

Thus far this book has been devoted to a consideration of the doctrines taught by Christian men in regard to woman's curse. And as earnestly has this doctrine been proclaimed that man seems to have entirely forgotten the curse also pronounced upon himself (or if he has not forgotten, he has neglected to see its full import) and in his anxiety to keep woman in subordination, he has placed his curse also upon her -- thus thwarting the express command of God. It is therefore just [now] to devote a few pages to the consideration of man's curse and an investigation of the spirit in which he has accepted the penalty imposed upon him for his share in the transgression which cost him Paradise.

At the commencement of this investigation it will be well to remember that Eve was not banished from the Garden of Eden. Adam alone was cast out and to prohibit his reentrance, not hers, the angel with the flaming sword was set as guardian at its gates.

We must also recall the opposition of the church, through the ages, to all attempts made toward the amelioration of woman's suffering at time of her bringing forth children, upon the plea that such mitigation was a direct interference with the mandate of the Almighty and an inexcusable sin. It will be recalled that in the chapter upon witchcraft, the bitter hostility of the church to the use of anesthetics by the women physicians of that period was shown and its opposing sermons, its charges of heresy, its burning at the stake as methods of enforcing that opposition.

Man, ever unjust to woman, has been no less so in the field of work. He has not taken upon himself the entire work of the world as commanded, but has ever imposed a large portion of it upon woman. Neither do all men labor, but thousands in idleness evade the "curse" of work pronounced upon all men alike.

The church -- in its teachings and through its non-preaching [of] the duty of man in this respect -- is guilty of that defiance of the Lord God it has ever been so ready to attribute to woman. The pulpit does not proclaim that this curse of work rests upon any man, does not preach this command to the idle, the profligate, the rich or the honored, but, on the contrary, shows less sympathy and less respect for the laborer than for the idle man. The influence of this neglect of its duty by the church has permeated the Christian world. We everywhere find contempt for the man who, amid thorns and thistles, tills the ground, obeying his primal curse of earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, and everywhere see respect accorded to the man who, by whatever means of honest or dishonest capacity evades his curse, taking no share in the labors of the field nor earning his bread [by] the sweat of his brow.

Anesthetics have justly been called the greatest boon ever conferred by science upon mankind. But after the persecution of the witchcraft period a knowledge of their use was lost to the world for many hundred years. But when rediscovered during the present century, their employment in mitigating the sufferings of the expectant mother again met with the same opposition as during the Middle Ages, upon the same ground -- of its interference with "the curse" pronounced by God upon woman. The question of their use as such time was violently discussed at ministerial gatherings. And when Sir James Simpson, physician to Queen Victoria, employed them at the birth of the later princes and princesses, he was assailed by the pulpit and press as having sacrilegiously thwarted "the curse." When the practice was introduced into the United States, prominent New England clergymen preached against their use upon the same ground -- of its being an impious frustration of the curse of the Almighty upon woman.

But the history of Christendom does not show an instance in which the church or the pulpit ever opposed labor by woman upon the ground of its being an interference with the curse pronounced upon man. [On] the contrary, her duty to labor has been taught by church and state alike; having met no opposition unless, perchance, she has entered upon some remunerative employment theretofore monopolized by man with the purpose of applying its proceeds to her own individual use. Nor has objection then arisen because of the work, but solely because of its money-earning qualities. an investigation of the laws concerning woman -- their origin, growth, and by whom chiefly sustained -- will enable us to judge how far they are founded upon the eternal principles of justice and how far emanating from ignorance, superstition and love of power, which is the basis of all despotism." pp. 250-252

"A consistent carrying out by man of his "curse" would cause him to take upon himself the entire work of the world; not alone tilling the soil, but all household labor-- the baking and brewing, the cooking and cleaning and all the multitudinous forms of work which make such wearisomely incessant demands upon woman's strength and time. From all sewing, knitting, crocheting [and] embroidering, she would be freed. And even beyond this, under the principles of his "curse" upon man should fall all the work of rearing children, as woman's "curse" -- so often quoted -- does not refer to aught but bringing them to life in sorrow and suffering." p. 266

"Man, and not woman, is commanded to leave father and mother. Man is to cleave unto his wife, not woman unto her husband. It was the men of Corinth whom Paul addressed concerning lewdness: "Such fornication was never known among the heathen, as that a man should take his father's wife." " p. 295