the wife was pretended, and none on the part of the husband, excepting
that he had gone to the west leaving his wife and child behind, no cause
appearing, and had returned, and somewhat clandestinely obtained
possession of the child. The Judge, following Blackstone's views of
husband's rights, remanded the infant to the custody of the father. He
thought the law required it, and perhaps it did; but if mothers had had
a voice, either in making or in administering the law, I think the
result would have been different. The distress of the mother on being
thus separated from her child can be better imagined than described. The
separation proved a final one, as in less than a year neither father nor
mother had any child on earth to love or care for. Whether the loss to
the little one of a mother's love and watchfulness had any effect upon
the result, cannot, of course, be known.

The state of the law a short time since, in other respects, in regard to
the rights of married women, shows what kind of security had been
provided for them by their assumed representatives. Prior to 1848, all
the personal property of every woman on marriage became the absolute
property of the husband--the use of all her real estate became his
during coverture, and on the birth of a living child, it became his
during his life. He could squander it in dissipation or bestow it upon
harlots, and the wife could not touch or interfere with it. Prior to
1860, the husband could by will take the custody of his infant children
away from the surviving mother, and give it to whom he pleased--and he
could in like manner dispose of the control of the children's property,
after his death, during their minority, without the mother's consent.

In most of these respects the state of the law has undergone great
changes within the last 25 years. The property, real and personal, which
a woman possesses before marriage, and such as may be given to her