Overheard in the Marriage Congress

Overheard in the Marriage CongressBy Adella M. Parker(From the Suffrage Edition of the “Daily News,” Tacoma, Wash.)

By Adella M. Parker

(From the Suffrage Edition of the “Daily News,” Tacoma, Wash.)

Once upon a time all the men in the world gathered together to make the laws of marriage. And the women, learning of this, gathered also, protesting and saying:

“A woman is one of the parties to every contract of marriage. Why do we also not make the laws of marriage?”

“Woman’s place is at home,” said the men.

“But,” said the women, “the marriage agreement is the very basis of the home.”

“Yes,” said the men, “but woman’s place is at home. It is not her place to create the conditions that make the home.”

“For how long is the marriage contract?” asked the women.

“Forever,” said the men. Then the women said:

“Suppose we should insist upon helping to make the contracts we enter into?”

“It wouldn’t be lawful,” said the men.

“Who makes the laws?” said the women.

“We do,” said the men.

“And do the men make the laws concerning the rights of children?” asked a woman with a babe in her arms, and another at her heels.

“Oh yes,” said the men.

“And the laws concerning a woman’s rights with respect to her own child?”

“Yes,” said the men, “the women bear the children, but the men determine their legal control.”

“Can the marriage contract ever be broken?” asked the bravest one of the women.

“No,” said the men, “it can’t be broken except upon facts that can’t be proved.”

“Do the men keep the marriage vows?” softly asked a woman ’way at the rear.

“Hush,” said a portly landlord who owned a “restricted district;” “no respectable woman would ask such a question.” Then a thoughtful woman earnestly asked:

“Will there not be more murders, and more suicides and more insanity if the women have not part in settling the terms of marriage?”

But the Lombrosos and the Allen McLane Hamiltons and all the other criminologists and insanity experts paid no heed to this question. Finally the women said:

“But suppose we don’t enter into these contracts that you make?”

“Oh, but you will,” said the men.

And they did. But some of the women got even.

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