Sections 1 It will be well to commence the detailed discussion of the subject by the particular branch… 2 Because these various enormities have fallen into disuse (for most of them were never… 3 In the immense majority of cases there is no settlement: and the absorption of all rights,… 4 And from this state she has no means of withdrawing herself. 5 I have no desire to exaggerate, nor does the case stand in any need of exaggeration. 6 Whether the institution to be defended is slavery, political absolutism, or the absolutism… 7 When we consider how vast is the number of men, in any great country, who are little higher… 8 A man who is morose or violent to his equals, is sure to be one who has lived among… 9 What is it, then, which really tempers the corrupting effects of the power, and makes it… 10 But how, it will be asked, can any society exist without government? 11 The real practical decision of affairs, to whichever may be given the legal authority, will… 12 A pertinacious adversary, pushed to extremities, may say, that husbands indeed are willing… 13 There are, no doubt, women, as there are men, whom equality of consideration will not… 14 We are entering into an order of things in which justice will again be the primary virtue;… 15 I readily admit (and it is the very foundation of my hopes) that numbers of married people… 16 We shall be told, perhaps, that religion imposes the duty of obedience; as every established… 17 This particular injustice and oppression to women, which is, to common apprehensions, more… 18 The power of earning is essential to the dignity of a woman, if she has not independent…
Start Learning Mill traces marriage law from wife-purchase and coverture to his own day, arguing that under English law a wife has no legal personality separate from her husband's — a status he calls a form of legal slavery — and sketches what an equal marriage contract would look like.
History of marriage as bondage Coverture and the wife's lack of legal personality Marriage compared to slavery Property and earnings under coverture What an equal marriage contract would look like
18 sections · ~40 min read
Start Learning