Our social structure has been based on the theory that “all men support all women,” a theory which has never been true, and which is farther from bei… - Mary Livermore

humanity has moved forward to an era where wrong and slavery are being displaced, and reason and justice are being recognized as the rule of life. Science is extending immeasurably the bounds of knowledge and power; art is refining life, giving to it beauty and grace; literature bears in her hands whole ages of comfort and sympathy, industry, aided by the hundred-handed elements of nature, is increasing the world’s wealth, and invention is economizing its labor. The ages looks steadily to the redressing of wrong, to the righting of every form of error and injustice; and the tireless and prying philanthropy, which is almost omniscient, is one of the most hopeful characteristics of the time. It could not be possible in such an era, but that women should share in the justice and kindliness with which the time is fraught. A great wave is lifting them to higher levels. The leadership of the world is being taken from the hands of the brutal and low, and the race is making its way to a higher ideal than once it knew.

The old-time theory that “all men support all women” led to the enactment of laws which gave all the earnings of the married woman to her husband; in most instances gave him control of her property, always legal possession of her person, and legal ownership of her minor children; the righto decide the location of their joint domicile; the power, in short, the become the arbiter of her fate;

Some one once asked Charles Sumner what bribes had been offered him in the course of his political career. “What bribe!” he replied. “No bribe has ever been offered me. I have never been solicited, with promise of payment, to pursue any course whatever. ” It could not have bene otherwise with Sumner. He as not a man to solicit temptation, or to dally with it, and people knew it. Usually, the people who are tempted are known to be in the market with principles to sell. But Charles Sumner, like some other great men of course country, had not a reputation of this kind.