From the “Editor’s Table” of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, November, 1853:  “Woman’s Rights, or the movement that goes under that name, may seem to some too trifling in itself and too much connected with ludicrous associations to be made the subject of serious arguments.  If nothing else, however, should give it consequence, it would demand our earnest attention from its intimate connection with all the radical and infidel movements of the day.  A strange affinity seems to bind them all together....  But not to dwell on this remarkable connection—­the claim of ‘woman’s rights’ presents not only the common radical notion which underlies the whole class, but also a peculiar enormity of its own; in some respects more boldly infidel, or defiant both of nature and revelation, than that which characterises any kindred measure.  It is avowedly opposed to the most time-honoured proprieties of social life; it is opposed to nature; it is opposed to revelation....  This unblushing female Socialism defies alike apostles and prophets.  In this respect no kindred movement is so decidedly infidel, so rancorously and avowedly anti-biblical.

“It is equally opposed to nature and the established order of society founded upon it.  We do not intend to go into any physiological argument.  There is one broad striking fact in the constitution of the human species which ought to set the question at rest for ever.  This is the fact of maternity....  From this there arise, in the first place, physical impediments which, during the best part of the female life, are absolutely insurmountable, except at a sacrifice of almost everything that distinguishes the civilized human from the animal, or beastly, and savage state.  As a secondary, yet inevitably resulting consequence, there come domestic and social hindrances which still more completely draw the line between the male and female duties....  Every attempt to break through them, therefore, must be pronounced as unnatural as it is irreligious and profane....  The most serious importance of this modern ‘woman’s rights’ doctrine is derived from its direct bearing upon the marriage institution.  The blindest must see that such a change as is proposed in the relations and life of the sexes cannot leave either marriage or the family in their present state.  It must vitally affect, and in time wholly sever, that oneness which has ever been at the foundation of the marriage idea, from the primitive declaration in Genesis to the latest decision of the common law.  This idea gone—­and it is totally at war with the modern theory of ’woman’s rights’—­marriage is reduced to the nature of a contract simply....  That which has no higher sanction than the will of the contracting parties, must, of course, be at any time revocable by the same authority that first created it.  That which makes no change in the personal relations, the personal rights, the personal duties, is not the holy marriage union, but the unholy alliance of concubinage.”