of its own, one Latin, the other English, in which the "male graduates" of the Grammar Schools may pursue their education still farther at the public expense. And why is not a like provision made for the girls? Why is their education stopped short, just as they have attained the age best fitted for progress, and the preliminary knowledge necessary to facilitate it, thus giving the advantage of superior culture to sex, not to mind?
The fact that our colleges and professional schools are closed against females, of which your remonstrant has had personal and painful experience; having been in the year 1847, after twelve years of medical practice in Boston, refused permission to attend the lectures of Harvard Medical College. That fact would seem to furnish an additional reason why the city should provide, at its own expense, those means of superior education which, by supplying our girls with occupation and objects of interest, would not only save them from lives of frivolity and emptiness, but which might open the way to many useful and lucrative pursuits, and so raise them above that degrading dependence, so fruitful a source of female misery.
Reserving a more full exposition of the subject to future occasions, your remonstrant, in paying her tax for the current year, begs leave to protest against the injustice and inequalities above pointed out.
Harriot K. Hunt,
32 Green Street, Boston, Mass.
This is respectfully submitted,
Harriot K. Hunt commenced the practice of medicine at the age of thirty, in 1835; twelve years after, was refused admission to Harvard Medical Lectures. She often said that as her love element had all centered in her profession, she intended to celebrate her silver wedding, which she did, in the summer of 1860. Her house was crowded with a large circle of loving friends, who decorated it with flowers and many bridal offerings, thus expressing their esteem and affection for the first woman physician, who had done so much to relieve the sufferings of women and children. The degree of M.D. was conferred on her by "The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania," in 1853. Her biographer says she honored the title more than the title could her.
MARRIAGE OF LUCY STONE UNDER PROTEST.
It was my privilege to celebrate May day by officiating at a wedding in a farm-house among the hills of West Brookfield. The bridegroom was a man of tried worth, a leader in the Western Anti-Slavery Movement; and the bride was one whose fair name is known throughout the nation; one whose rare intellectual qualities are excelled by the private beauty of her heart and life.
I never perform the marriage ceremony without a renewed sense of the iniquity of our present system of laws in respect to marriage; a system by which "man and wife are one, and that one is the husband." It was with my hearty concurrence, therefore, that the following protest was read and signed, as a part of the nuptial ceremony; and I send it to you, that others may be induced to do likewise.
Rev. Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
PROTEST.
While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare that this act on our part implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage, as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess. We protest especially against the laws which give to the husband:
1. The custody of the wife's person.
2. The exclusive control and guardianship of their children.
3. The sole ownership of her personal, and use of her real estate, unless previously settled upon her, or placed in the hands of trustees, as in the case of minors, lunatics, and idiots.
4. The absolute right to the product of her industry.
5. Also against laws which give to the widower so much larger and more permanent an interest in the property of his deceased wife, than they give to the widow in that of the deceased husband.
6. Finally, against the whole system by which "the legal existence of the wife is suspended during marriage," so that in most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence, nor can she make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own name, nor inherit property.
We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited, except for crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership, and so recognized by law; that until it is so recognized, married partners should provide against the radical injustice of present laws, by every means in their power.
We believe that where domestic difficulties arise, no appeal should be made to legal tribunals under existing laws, but that all difficulties should be submitted to the equitable adjustment of arbitrators mutually chosen.
Thus reverencing law, we enter our protest against rules and customs which are unworthy of the name, since they violate justice, the essence of law.
(Signed), Henry. B. Blackwell,
Lucy Stone.
Worcester Spy, 1855.
To the above The Liberator appended the following:
We are very sorry (as will be a host of others) to lose Lucy Stone, and certainly no less glad to gain Lucy Blackwell. Our most fervent benediction upon the heads of the parties thus united.
This was a timely protest against the whole idea of the old Blackstone code, which made woman a nonentity in marriage. Lucy Stone took an equally brave step in refusing to take her husband's name, respecting her own individuality and the name that represented it. These protests have called down on Mrs. Stone much ridicule and persecution, but she has firmly maintained her position, although at great inconvenience in the execution of legal documents, and suffering the injustice of having her vote refused as Lucy Stone, soon after the bill passed in Massachusetts giving all women the right to vote on the school question.
In 1858, Caroline H. Dall, of Boston, gave a series of literary lectures in different parts of the country, on "Woman's Claims to Education," beginning in her native city. Her subjects were:
Nov. 1st.—The ideal standard of education, depressed by public opinion, but developed by the spirit of the age; Egypt and Algiers.
Nov. 8th.—Public opinion, as it is influenced by the study of the Classics and History, by general literature, newspapers, and customs.
Nov. 15th.—Public opinion as modified by individual lives: Mary Wollstonecroft, Anna Jamieson, Charlotte Bronté, and Margaret Fuller.
In June 11th, of this year, Mrs. Dall writes to the Liberator of her efforts to circulate the following petition:
To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in General Court assembled:
Whereas, The women of Massachusetts are disfranchised by its State Constitution solely on account of sex.
We do respectfully demand the right of suffrage, which involves all other rights of citizenship, and one that can not justly be withheld, as the following admitted principles of government show:
1st. "All men are born free and equal."
2d.
