Women and the Alphabet - A Series of Essays by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
page 123 of 269 (45%)
page 123 of 269 (45%)
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have a movement for the prevention of cruelty to mothers?
A Rhode Island lady, who had never taken any interest in the woman-suffrage movement, came to me in great indignation the other day, asking if it was true that under Rhode Island laws a husband might, by his last will, bequeath his child away from its mother, so that she might, if the guardian chose, never see it again. I said that it was undoubtedly true, and that such were still the laws in many States of the Union. "But," she said, "it is an outrage. The husband may have been one of the weakest or worst men in the world; he may have persecuted his wife and children; he may have made the will in a moment of anger, and have neglected to alter it. At any rate, he is dead, and the mother is living. The guardian whom he appoints may turn out a very malicious man, and may take pleasure in torturing the mother; or he may bring up the children in a way their mother thinks ruinous for them. Why do not all the mothers cry out against such a law?" "I wish they would," I said. "I have been trying a good many years to make them understand what the law is; but they do not. People who do not vote pay no attention to the laws until they suffer from them." She went away protesting that she, at least, would not hold her tongue on the subject, and I hope she will not. The actual text of the law to which she objected is as follows:-- "Every person authorized by law to make a will, except married women, shall have a right to appoint by his will a guardian or guardians for his children during their minority."[1] |
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