Reasons Why the Women of New Jersey Should Vote. Manuscript.
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Stone, Lucy. Autograph Manuscript.: "Reasons why the women of New Jersey should Vote. As shown from the constitution and statutes of N. Jersey.” [New Jersey, March, 1868].
Three sheets: 8 x 12-1/2", ruled writing paper; written on all six sides; the first sheet has suffered a significant 6-7" tear to which tape has been applied (and subsequently removed); other, relatively minor, tape stains and bits of tape residue; some edges worn; the paper itself is fragile’ about very good.
Holograph manuscript., fair printer's copy possibly, of the Lucy Stone pamphlet published by the New Jersey State Woman Suffrage Association. New Jersey women were, in fact, the first women in the United States to vote. The New Jersey state constitution of 1776 gave the franchise to "all inhabitants worth $250.00" and the 1790 election confirmed this right. In 1807, however, the legislature revoked woman suffrage. Over the following decades the legislature buttressed this first, great blow to women's rights with a series of statutes allocating virtually all rights regarding children and property to husbands. Lucy Stone's "reasons why the women of New Jersey should vote" are the New Jersey laws, which classify women with minors, idiots, paupers and criminals. Her assault on these laws is a damning recitation of the laws which reduce New Jersey women to "the condition of a conquered slave":
A widow whose husband has died without a will is entitled only to the life-use of only one-third of his real estate and she is required to pay rent after 40 days
In the absence of a will, a wife is entitled to 1/3 to 1/2 of the marital personal property. If there is a will, "she will have such part of it as the will gives her, if any." A widow is not entitled to any crops. [Etc.]
In contrast, a widower holds life use for ALL his deceased wife's real estate, and has absolute ownership of all her personal property. The law requires a widow give a bond in order to act as administratrix of her husband's estate; no bond is required of a widower. he law does allow a wife to dispose of her personal property in a valid will, with her husband's consent [emphasis added]; but the husband may revoke his consent, even after his wife's death, and thus void her will.
Stone allows the statutes to speak for themselves. Readers would have understood, and likely experienced, how severely these laws effected women and children, leaving families financially devastated. Though the statute voiding a widow's rights to crops, for example, may appear minor, in an agrarian economy this meant the loss of substantial income critical to the family's survival.
Even more appalling are the New Jersey laws which give a father absolute control over children. Stone emphasizes New Jersey law defines an orphan as a "fatherless" child and then sets out one statute after another. Even a minor who fathers a child may "both deed and will away the child from its mother." As she tersely comments, "And this atrocious law is in force in the District of Columbia, in the Territories, and in nearly every State in the Union." A mother, ironically, has no legal standing or rights regarding her children, unless she is unmarried.
Stone concludes:
Thus in all the relations peculiar to her sex, as wife, mother, and widow, woman is placed by New Jersey in a condition of servitude and inferiority. The sacred relation of marriage, instead of being a noble and permanent partnership of equals, with reciprocal rights and duties, is degraded into a mercenary and unequal bond between Superior and Dependent, injurious to both. And finally the numerous and increasing class of women who have to earn their daily bread by wages or salary, are paid only one-third to one-half of what voters receive for similar employments, and are often reduced to beggary and shame, because women have no vote.
Lucy Stone's own reservations about marriage are well known. She stated publicly that "ma
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