"Is Marriage a Failure?" from the June 1, 1889 Door County Advocate, with a response from Frank Long, Editor and Proprietor
"IS MARRIAGE A FAILURE?"
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Dr. Juliet H. Severance Says It Is, and Gives Her Reasons Therefor.
Dr. Juliet H. Severance, who delivered a lecture on woman suffrage in this city on Tuesday night, May 21st, also addressed the people of Milwaukee on the same subject Monday evening,
The substance of her speech is given in the Sentinel, and we reproduce it for the benefit of all concerned. We trust that everybody will read it carefully and reflect thereon:
In spite of the rain last night there was a fairly large audience at Fraternity hall to hear Mrs. Juliet H. Severance's address on "Is Marriage a Failure." Mrs. Severance introduced her subject by stating that she purposed showing conclusively that the marriage relation was a failure. She told an anecdote of an old farmer who, on being asked whether marriage was a failure replied: "Oh dear, no. There's my Jane; she and I have been married twenty years and she has always attended to my house, and mended my clothes, and raised my children, and looked after my cows. No, marriage is not a failure."
This, the speaker said, was the reply of a man. Had the question been put to Jane it might have been different "The advocates of the marriage relation," said Mrs. Severance, "will tell you that marriage is the safeguard of social virtue. I say it is not. They say that marriage is founded on religion. The religion of the day is unstable, and religion and marriage will eventually sink down into oblivion together. Marriage is but a legalized enslavement of the woman. It was so in ancient and remains so in modern times. In primitive days the wife was a piece of property acquired frequently by purchase or sold by the husband at will. Under the Hebraic law the wife could be put to death as a punishment for adultery, while no restrictions were placed upon the husband, who could hold carnal indulgence ad libitum. Quite recently there occurred in Ohio a case which strongly evidences the servility of the wife under the marriage contract.
Mrs. Judge Sceny brought suit against Mrs. Bowman for alienating and taking from her her husband. The judge before whom the case was tried, in handing down his opinion, said that the husband could sue for injury done the wife, that the father could sue for injury done his child, but that under the law the wife had no recourse to law for any injury done her through her husband.
The case was dismissed. The law says that if a man's wife commits adultery he can sue and recover damages from the man who has so committed, but the law leaves the man free to satisfy his amorous passion where he pleases, and provides no recourse for the wife in such cases. In the famous Beecher-Tilton suit, Tilton brought suit against Beecher to recover damages from him for having illegitimate intercourse with Mrs. Tilton.
"The marriage relation, too, is simply a cloak under which men outrage the persons of their wives without fear of having to answer for it. The law, says you can't outrage a woman you are not married to, but get a justice, or a judge, or a minister to pronounce the words making her a wife and you are free to abuse her at your pleasure. And men do abuse their wives in a most shameful manner. Why, if this was the fitting place I could tell of innumerable instances that have taken place right here in this city, where men have outraged their wives in a most bestial manner. And this is what they call the sanctified bond of union. I hold that the only bond that can unite people is conjugal affection without interference from the law. The law binds together without any regard for the mutual fitness of man and woman for each other. It not only binds men and women, but it compels them to remain together whether or not they are so inclined. It will not allow, a divorce to be granted even when the two parties have found that there is no love between them and they are entirely unsuited to each other. When a husband and wife go before a court and say that the conjugal affection is unknown to them and they want a divorce, the law says they can't have it unless one of them has committed some heinous offense, such as murder, or robbery or absolute desertion. Thus the law makes criminals of people who cannot get away from a relation that is distasteful and unwholesome to them without committing crime. Many people are led into crime, in order to secure a divorce. The better class of people, however, do not care to become notorious by resorting to such an extremity, and live on in a state of hatred and disgust toward each other, because the law says they must. Think of a woman taking to her bosom a man who is repulsive to her. Let men and women be joined together by conjugal affection alone and better results must follow. John Stuart Mills: 'The marriage contract is the only form of serfdom left' and I say with Mr. Mills that except as a form of serfdom the marriage relation is a failure."
After Mrs. Severance had finished, there were several five-minute addresses on the subject. Mr. Sherman thought that love was a beautiful thing in marriage, but had to acknowledge that the marriage contract was a failure in some respects.
Mr. Simonds was of the opinion that Mrs. Severance should not judge the marriage relation by a few married people. Mrs. Lewis stated that she was trying to get a divorce, and she hoped to get hers. Bob Schilling remarked that the majority of murderers and other villains and insane and idiotic people were the result of mismated fathers and mothers.
If the foregoing is not "free love," simple and pure, we would like some person to get up and tell us what it is. After reading the extract we would like to inquire how many people there are in this city and county who would desire to have Mrs. Severance introduced into their family circle with the privilege of saying and doing as she pleased?
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive