A married woman has the same natural right to acquire and hold property, and to make all contracts that she is mentally competent to make reasonably, as has a married man, or any other man.
Interpretation
This quote asserts that married women possess the same rights as married men regarding property and contracts.
Lysander Spooner's quote emphasizes the fundamental equality of women in legal and economic matters, arguing that a married woman should have the same autonomy and rights to manage property and enter into contracts as any man. This statement challenges the societal norms of his time that often restricted women's rights, advocating for recognition of women's capabilities and rights as individuals, regardless of marital status.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a women's rights seminar to highlight the importance of property rights.
The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that-however bloody-can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.
Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.
Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression.
There is not, in the Constitution, a syllable that implies that persons, born within the territorial limits of the United States, have allegiance imposed upon them on account of their birth in the country, or that they will be judged by any different rule, on the subject of treason, than persons of foreign birth.
What you can do with relations is greater than what you can do with guns.
Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.
Marriage...is the union of two people of different sexes with a view to the mutual possession of each other's sexual attributes for the duration of their lives.
A lot of widows feel that they have betrayed their spouse by continuing to live. It's deranged thinking. I know that, but that doesn't stop you feeling it.
In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth women are not merely "tolerated", they are valued.
My life has been immensely enriched by gay mentors, colleagues and friends, and any discrimination and persecution of gay people is unacceptable.
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