Divorce Debate 1860 National Woman’s Rights Convention
The national women rights convention was aimed at reforming marriage issues due to the difficultness that had been reported earlier. In this convention, women rights were highlighted to enable them to divorce husbands who show signs of drunkenness. In addition, those men who showed other signs of insanity or cruelty were also included in the list of divorcees. This issue faced a lot of opposition nearly to be defeated due to heated debate on the matter that conflicted the measures. Furthermore, the voting right of women was also emphasized through amendment in the congressional constitution. This constitutional affair was to be enhanced through specific constitutional location. The working conditions and the remunerations of the women were also advocated.
In this debate, there was a concession in the portion of providing women a place in the society; this was aimed at fighting for equal representation of the women in the society matters. Through this activity, women where to be involved in the development plans in the society thus enabling them to air their opinion in the community development. They were also to continue participating in the women chores that entailed in providing for their husband and through helping in the household chores. Providing for good women environment was a factor that was to be enhanced through giving women rights to vote and vie for position in the leadership in the country or area in which they are residing. In addition, women rights to peaceful coexistence in the family were also emphasized in order to provide cohesion in the family. This strongly gave the women rights to experience peace in their family through relating to their husband in a peaceful way without threats or violence. Failure to observe this right by the husbands, the women were allowed to give out divorce proposal thus enhancing their peace. In other words, it was important to have satisfaction in life without barriers that were associated with violence. Thus, the only advice that was advocated for men was to refrain from involving in themselves in domestic violence.
The other area that their speech attained common view involved the drinking habits of the alleged husband. In this way, it was discussed that many men were involved in the drinking habit that halted their rightful behavior hence making them behave inhumane to their wives and the entire family. The action of drinking was associated with domestic violence and hence women rights were violated by men. It was also supposed that, the cruelty associated with drinking was intentional because drinking was a deliberate action by men. Thus, this exploit was avoidable by the affected for which it would bring peace in the family. During this period, many domestic violence’s were associated with families that men were drunk addicts hence it was emphasized that every woman had the right to have a peaceful life in the marriage life.
The working conditions of the women were also advocated in order to enable women to be self-reliant. This was to ensure that incase of any resolution to divorce due to men’s poor behavior, women would be capable of being financially stable and thus having good living conditions. In this way, the slave trade was abolished though the contributed effort of Elizabeth and Antoinette. In this also, women were allowed to occupy higher positions in the working system according to their education level. Consequently, better education was advocated in order to improve the level of education of women thus enabling them to be employed and have a better salary. The working conditions for women were made equal among the men and the women thus giving each equal contribution to the marriage and family matters. Therefore, the abolition of slave trade and education awareness made the living conditions for women more improved thus they were able to divorce without problems. This is because many men had a tendency of assuming women could not apply for divorce because they were financially unstable. Sequentially, this assumption made men to continue mistreating their wives because they were sure they would not leave them.
The area of contrast in divorce that Elizabeth and Antoinette brought forward was associated with the chores of women in the household. Antoinette opposed the idea that divorce was a way of evading or easing the marital restrictions. In this proposal, many women were encouraged to apply for divorce in order to leave their marital requirements and chore the marriage life. This stroke faced a lot of opposition because it was not applicable for it brought breaking of many marriages. Therefore, this action was unacceptable for it brought instability in the social life. Marriage life was thought to be very demanding and full of commitments by the parties involved and especially to the women. Thus, many women were campaigning for this proposal in order to ease those chores in the family. This was not a fair decision due to the numerous negatives that were associated with it. In addition, she proposed that, single life was much better than marriage life because one could experience the freedom that she desired. Hence she discouraged divorce for it would leave children with a lot of confusion and problems that could affect their future life, therefore it was better not to engage in marriage issues.
In their speech, Antoinette was very firm in defending her involvement in religion, which was a core factor in enabling her serve rightly in the action of fighting for women rights. Therefore, she encouraged women to participate more in religious activities in order to be assisted in fighting the oppression that they faced. This action of religious involvement was in opposition to other women ideas who were actively involved in the fight against the oppression of women. Religion was perceived to be important in “teaching good ethics of marriage” (Murphy, 2010). Therefore, Antoinette was convinced that religion played a vital role in reforming marriage. Sequentially, the biblical teaching discouraged divorce because it was alleged to be a sin. Hence, Christianity was encouraged for it catered for many domestic matters that were not dealt with by the law.
The other area of contrast arises with the view that divorce was used as a source of financial support for women. This brought a lot of controversy because men were obliged to support their family even after the divorce. This idea was in conjunction with the point of evading marital responsibility according to Antoinette. Therefore, in this issue many women developed a beneficial thinking about marriage. This was a malicious intention of proposing divorce thus it faced a lot of criticism by many human rights activists. However, Elizabeth was for the idea and this was a very big blow that caused drift in the women organization. This issue was associated with the tendency of women not engaging themselves in income generating activities hence making them lazy.
Therefore, the national women rights convention was important in reforming marriage issues that brought difficulties in marriage due to the difficulties. In this convention, divorce was only encouraged to the areas where there were continual evil practices by men .In addition, it also advocated for equality of men and women even in the legislation. Sequentially, women were allowed to vote and vie for positions in the government. The working conditions of women were improved and hence the abolishment of the slave labor. However, divorce was discouraged because it was abused by many women who wanted to take advantage of financial status of their husbands. This was discouraged because many women would take this as the cause of enriching themselves and thus refraining from working to earn their own income. The other issue that was emphasized regarded Christianity, which was essential in enhancing harmony in the marriage life. Sequentially, it was advisable to for women to involve themselves in Christianity because it taught them values and ethics of marriage. Elizabeth and Antoinette were key activists in bringing out the controversial issue about marriage and divorce in the present days. This gave them a clear explanation regarding the pending issues that surrounded divorce.
References
Murphy, J. (2010). Marriage and Divorce. Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris Corporation.
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