have known this man come to install himself in the chamber of a woman
who loathed him, and say she should never take food without his
company. I have known these men steal their children, whom they knew
they had no means to maintain, take them into dissolute company,
expose them to bodily danger, to frighten the poor woman, to whom, it
seems, the fact that she alone had borne the pangs of their birth, and
nourished their infancy, does not give an equal right to them. I do
believe that this mode of kidnapping--and it is frequent enough in all
classes of society--will be by the next age viewed as it is by Heaven
now, and that the man who avails himself of the shelter of men's laws
to steal from a mother her own children, or arrogate any superior
right in them, save that of superior virtue, will bear the stigma he
deserves, in common with him who steals grown men from their
mother-land, their hopes, and their homes.

I said, we will not speak of this now; yet I _have_ spoken, for
the subject makes me feel too much. I could give instances that would
startle the most vulgar and callous; but I will not, for the public
opinion of their own sex is already against such men, and where cases
of extreme tyranny are made known, there is private action in the
wife's favor. But she ought not to need this, nor, I think, can she
long. Men must soon see that as, on their own ground, Woman is the
weaker party, she ought to have legal protection, which would make
such oppression impossible. But I would not deal with "atrocious
instances," except in the way of illustration, neither demand from men
a partial redress in some one matter, but go to the root of the whole.
If principles could be established, particulars would adjust
themselves aright. Ascertain the true destiny of Woman; give her
legitimate hopes, and a standard within herself; marriage and all
other relations would by degrees be harmonized with these.