A Marriage Protest
August 25, 2009
The institution of marriage is undergoing it’s most profound crisis today. But, it has been subjected to lesser controversies throughout history.
Robert Dale Owen issued the following statement on the occasion of his 1832 wedding to Mary Jane Robinson, to protest the state of law by which women lost property and other legal rights upon marriage.
Of the unjust rights which in virtue of this ceremony an iniquitous law gives me over the person and property of another, I cannot legally, but I can morally, divest myself. And I hereby distinctly and emphatically declare that I consider myself, and earnestly desire to be considered by others, as utterly divested, now and during the rest of my life, of any such rights, the barbarous relics of a feudal, despotic system.
