Polygamy, slavery, drunkenness, and the doctrine of the inferiority of woman to man, are all alike the offspring of sin—­all alike relics of barbarism—­alike the enemies of God and human freedom.

Long-established prejudices and old usages, no matter how false and oppressive, are, like the everlasting hills, hard to be removed.  But, as the mountains themselves have been overcome by skill and hard work, and the valleys are being filled by persevering toil; as the crooked is being made straight and the rough places plain, so that the people of this mighty continent may travel with ease in palace-cars from sea to sea; so must the strong barriers of prejudice, ignorance, misrepresentation, and indifference, be removed by the force of truth and sound reason, and women be admitted to their legitimate position in society, with equal prerogatives accorded to them, that they may thereby more perfectly exert their natural influence in improving the world.

CHAPTER VI.

Woman Before the Law.

The fact that men and women are held amenable to the same Divine law, and held equally accountable for any infraction of it, and that human law, with regard to criminal actions, is based upon the same principle, clearly proves that God has created men and women, as a race, with equal mental and moral capacity, and that, so far as it suited them to do so, men have acknowledged the equality in framing the laws, especially those relating to the punishment for crimes committed.  It was only where masculine arrogance and selfishness were concerned, that the privileges of equality were denied to women; and they are still denied for the same reason.  Such is man’s consistency.  If women, because of their sex—­indeed, in consequence of it—­are inferior to men in mental and moral capacity, then it is unjust to judge them by the same law; for where little is given little should be required.  Imbecile men are not judged by the same code as men of sound mind.  If men and women are mentally and morally equal—­and we hold they are—­then they are justly held to be equally accountable by the laws, provided they have been equally represented in the making of those laws; and if held equally accountable with men to the laws, they ought, in common justice, to be entitled to the enjoyment of equal immunities with men, and an equal voice in the making of the laws that are to govern them.

To urge that, because the house is the legitimate place for a woman, she is therefore inferior to man, and in consequence ought not to enjoy the same rights, is no more logical than to contend that, because the farm is the legitimate place for the farmer, he is therefore inferior to the lawyer, who is somewhat better skilled in legal lore, and that consequently the farmer is not entitled to equal political and religious rights and privileges with the lawyer; or that, because neither of these classes understands the minutiae of housekeeping, therefore they are inferior to women, and in consequence not entitled to equal rights and privileges with them.  Good housekeeping is quite as essential to the world’s good, and to the healthful development of humanity, as good farming or the proper construing of well-made laws, neither of which is to be undervalued.  Where, then, is the inferiority?