appeared, offering his heart and "all his worldly goods." "No, I thank
you," replied the sorely tried creature, "I prefer to keep my bureau."

The first struggle made by women in their own behalf was against this
condition of marital slavery. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott,
Lydia Maria Child, and others of that brave band of rebellious women,
were active for years, addressing legislative committees in New York and
Massachusetts, circulating petitions, writing to newspapers, agitating
everywhere in favor of married women's property rights. Finally it began
to dawn on the minds of men that there might be a certain public
advantage, as well as private justice, attaching to separate ownership
by married women of their own property.

In 1839 the Massachusetts State Legislature passed a cautious measure
giving married women qualified property rights. It was not until 1848
that a really effective Married Women's Property Law was secured, by
action of the New York State Assembly. The law served as a model in many
of the new Western States just then framing their laws.

These New York legislators, and the Western legislators who first
granted property rights to married women, were actuated less by a sense
of justice towards women than by enlightened selfishness. The effect of
so much freedom on women themselves was a matter for grave conjecture.
It was not suggested by any of the American debaters, as it was later on
the floors of the English Parliament, that women, if they controlled
their own property, would undoubtedly squander it on men whom they
preferred to their husbands. But it was prophesied that women once in
possession of money would desert their husbands by regiments,--which
speaks none too flatteringly of the husbands of that day.