Marriage As It Was As It Is and As It Should Be: A Plea for Reform

A married woman loses control over her own body; it belongs to her owner not to herself; no force no violence on the husbands part in conjugal relations is regarded as possible by the law; she may be suffering ill it matters not; force or constraint is recognised by the law as rape in all cases save that of marriage; the law holds it to be felony to force even a concubine or harlot (Brooms Commentaries vol. iv. p. 255) but no rape can be committed by a husband on a wife; the consent given in marriage is held to cover the life and if—as sometimes occurs—a miscarriage or premature confinement be brought on by the husbands selfish passions no offence is committed in the eye of the law for the wife is the husbands property and by marriage she has lost the right of control over her own body. The English marriage law sweeps away all the tenderness all the grace all the generosity of love and transforms conjugal affection into a hard and brutal legal right.