Lexington Daily Press, Feb. 3, 1874: Love, Honor and Obey - A Diatribe against Women's Legal Rights

A Diatribe against the Movement for Women's Legal Rights

Love, Honor and Obey

On the whole, married women, that is, real women, prefer to be ruled than ruling. It is scarcely in her nature to go speechlessly on doing what she has to do without aid or counsel. Almost say one of our sex is happier if she can "talk things over" with some man upon whose discretion she relies; and in married life most wives do, even in the smallest things, what "he" likes, and fancy that they like it themselves. Since independence has become the fashion, and strong-minded women have sneered at the more gentle sisters, there is great affectation of despising the opinion of men, but it is all sheer pretence. Almost every wife chooses her gloves and her ribbons of the tint that her husband admires, and the man she loves inevitably gives her her political opinions, and biases even her religious views. Her speech, her dress, her manners change under his influence. What he desires her to do she does in nine cases out of ten. The tenth case we find in the divorce courts. You may rule your wife as you please, good married reader, if you only love and pet her enough. Haughtiness and fault-finding alone will make her restive. And you, dear girl, remember that it will be well to choose a husband good and noble and upright, so that you may obey him to your heart's content without losing your own self-respect; for you will obey him if you love him; and if he be low and mean you will sink to the level slowly but surely in the course of years. [Rural New Yorker]

Lexington [Kentucky] Daily Press, February 3, 1874, p.3, col. 3.

Some Key Efforts for Kentucky Women's Rights
1838 Kentucky women (denied full suffrage) were, if unmarried and owned taxable property in county districts, were given the right to vote on school bonds and district school trustees - but few qualified, and fewer still even knew about this right

1867 1st women's suffrage organization founded at Glendale in Hardin County

1872 Margaret V. Langley of Ohio and Hannah Tracy Butler of Illinois presented a verbal request for improved laws regulating married women's property rights

1879 Susan B. Anthony visited Kentucky, and the first permanent woman's rights organization in the state was begun - the Madison County Equal Rights Association

1881 American Woman Suffrage Assoc. met in Louisville (the first such convention held south of the Ohio River), and the Ky. Woman Suffrage Assoc was formed - the first state society in the South

1888 Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA) founded by suffragettes from Fayette and Kenton counties - Laura Clay is president until 1912

1891 Ky. legislature granted partial suffrage to women of Lexington, Covington and Newport - they could vote in school elections and municipal and presidential elections

1901 The Lexington school board elections showed that Black women could organize under the Republican Party and present a threat to the Democrats; the law allowing partial suffrage for women was repealed in 1902

1920 Kentucky became the 23rd state to ratify the 19th Amendment; it also granted presidential suffrage but this became redundant in August 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified

	Some Key Efforts for Kentucky Women's Rights
1838	Kentucky women (denied full suffrage) were, if unmarried and owned taxable property in county districts, were given the right to vote on school bonds and district school trustees - but few qualified, and fewer still even knew about this right
1867	1st women's suffrage organization founded at Glendale in Hardin County
1872	Margaret V. Langley of Ohio and Hannah Tracy Butler of Illinois presented a verbal request for improved laws regulating married women's property rights
1879	Susan B. Anthony visited Kentucky, and the first permanent woman's rights organization in the state was begun - the Madison County Equal Rights Association
1881	American Woman Suffrage Assoc. met in Louisville (the first such convention held south of the Ohio River), and the Ky. Woman Suffrage Assoc was formed - the first state society in the South
1888	Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA) founded by suffragettes from Fayette and Kenton counties - Laura Clay is president until 1912
1891	Ky. legislature granted partial suffrage to women of Lexington, Covington and Newport - they could vote in school elections and municipal and presidential elections
1901	The Lexington school board elections showed that Black women could organize under the Republican Party and present a threat to the Democrats; the law allowing partial suffrage for women was repealed in 1902
1920	Kentucky became the 23rd state to ratify the 19th Amendment; it also granted presidential suffrage but this became redundant in August 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified

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