A CHAPTER FOR MARRIED PEOPLE 543 



and burdens of pregnancy, but whose sensual hus- 

 bands continue to demand indulgence, will echo in de- 

 spairing tones, while acknowledging the truth, ''What 

 shall IV e do?" We will answer the question for the 

 latter first. 



Mr. Mill, the distinguished English logician, in his 

 work on ' ' The Subjection of Woman, ' ' thus represents 

 the erroneous view which is popularly held concerning 

 the sexual relations of the wife to the husband: ''The 

 wife, however brutal a tyrant she may be chained to, 

 —though she may know that he hates her, though it 

 may be his daily pleasure to torture her, and though 

 she may feel it impossible not to loathe him,— he can 

 claim from her and enforce the lowest degradation of 

 a human being, that of being made the instrument of 

 an animal function contrary to her inclinations." 



Woman's Rights.— A woman does not, upon the 

 performance of the marriage ceremony, surrender all 

 her personal rights. The law recognizes this fact if 

 her husband beats her, or in any way injures her by 

 physical force, or even by neglect. Why may she not 

 claim protection from other maltreatment as well? or, 

 at least, why may she not refuse to lend herself to 

 beastly lust? She remains the proprietor of her own 

 body, though married; and who is so lost to all sense 

 of justice, equity, and even morality, as to claim that 

 she is under any moral obligation to allow her body to 

 be abused? 



"But such a course would lead to separation and 

 divorce in numerous cases. ' ' "WTio will contend for the 

 maintenance of a relation which has no other bond 

 than lust, which views no other object than the gratifi- 

 cation of the animal passions? Were not such a bond 

 better broken than preserved, and were not such an 



