There is so much that I took away from Lucy Stone's biography (written by her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell). But my favorite parts were much too long to be included in the graphic, so I'll add them here...
(1) A. Blackwell writes, "The injustice of the laws was not due to any especial depravity on the part of men, but merely to the self-partiality of human nature. If the laws had been made by women alone, they would probably have been just as one-sided, only it would have been the other way around. Event though the best men though that the existing conditions were right. As Henry B. Blackwell said, 'No governed class was ever yet without a grievance. Yet no governing class has ever been able to see that the grievance existed.'" <--How true is this even today?!?!
(2) The second inclusion references the "Marriage Protest" drawn up by Lucy and Henry. Not that I'm particularly keen on marriage for myself, this type of promised equality, especially during that time, is so powerful to witness.
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While we acknowledge our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare that this act on our part implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage, as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess. We protest especially against the laws which give to the husband:
1. The custody of the wife's person.
2. The exclusive control and guardianship of their children.
3. The sole ownership of her personal, and use of her real estate, unless previously settled upon her, or placed in the hands of trustees, as in the case of minors, lunatics, and idiots.
4. The absolute right to the product of her industry.
5. Also against laws which give to the widower so much larger and more permanent interest in the property of his deceased wife, than they give to the widow in that of the deceased husband.
6. Finally, against the whole system by which "the legal existence of the wife is suspended during marriage," so that in most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence, nor can she make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own name, nor inherit property.
We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited, except for crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership, and so recognized by law; that until it is so recognized, married partners should provide against the radical injustice of present laws, by every means in their power.
REFERENCE: Marriage Protest of Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell (May 1, 1855). Quoted in T. W. Higginson, "Marriage of Lucy Stone Under Protest," The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts), vol. 25, no. 18 (Whole no. 1085) (May 4, 1855), p. 71.
