Long-established prejudices and old usages, no matter how false and
oppressive, are, like the everlasting hills, hard to be removed. But, as
the mountains themselves have been overcome by skill and hard work, and
the valleys are being filled by persevering toil; as the crooked is
being made straight and the rough places plain, so that the people of
this mighty continent may travel with ease in palace-cars from sea to
sea; so must the strong barriers of prejudice, ignorance,
misrepresentation, and indifference, be removed by the force of truth
and sound reason, and women be admitted to their legitimate position in
society, with equal prerogatives accorded to them, that they may thereby
more perfectly exert their natural influence in improving the world.
CHAPTER VI.
Woman Before the Law.
The fact that men and women are held amenable to the same Divine law,
and held equally accountable for any infraction of it, and that human
law, with regard to criminal actions, is based upon the same principle,
clearly proves that God has created men and women, as a race, with equal
mental and moral capacity, and that, so far as it suited them to do so,
men have acknowledged the equality in framing the laws, especially those
relating to the punishment for crimes committed. It was only where
masculine arrogance and selfishness were concerned, that the privileges
of equality were denied to women; and they are still denied for the
same reason.
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