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Unit 22: Harriet Martineau-On Marriage...

Marriage is better than it is in Europe, but it will remain imperfect so long as women continue Notes
to be "ill-educated, passive, and subservient".
• Marriage is different throughout various parts of the U.S. Women in America have the right
to hold property, especially in the south, where the husband and wife get half of the property
each. (Marriage is seen as the fundamental unit of productive work; the income belongs to
both of them.)
• The rules in the south copy the old Saxon law that gives a wife half her husband's earnings.
Spain, France, Italy and Germany give the same rights and it is English laws fail to honor the
rights of the woman. The faults of that English law are copied by Massachusetts.
• Divorce in England is so difficult for women that people use it as a means to defraud others,
and it drives them to unfaithfulness to their spouse. Because it is so difficult, only the rich
can afford it in England. In the U.S., it is much more easy to obtain.
• Divorce in some states is almost as rigid as it is in England; in other states, cruelty, which is
grounds for divorce in any state, is so broad a term that almost anyone can get a divorce with
relative ease. Because "cruelty" is so broad a term, it is almost never cited as the reason for a
divorce. (A more modern term to explain broadly defined cruelty is "irreconcilable differences"
or "we grew apart.") Broadened more so that many states have "no-fault divorce."
• The only proper role which legislation has in relation to marriage is in relation to property
and its equitable distribution between the husband and wife and the children. It has no value
in attempting to regulate morality.
• One would hope that marriage in America is more a marriage of equality in love, but it is
beginning to take on some of the corruption of Europe, in that it is becoming a means of
ensuring financial safety.
• "The unavoidable consequence of such a mode of marrying is, that the sanctity of marriage
is impaired, and that vice succeeds. Any one must see at a glance that if men and women
marry those whom they do not love, they must love those whom they do not marry." (154)
Saying that if you marry for money you have almost certainly set yourself up for infidelity.
• "Laws and customs may be creative of vice; and should be therefore perpetually under
process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue:
they may encouraged and help to preserve it; but they cannot originate it." Means that laws
created with vice are made to take advantage of others. Laws can't create virtue because they
can't stop a person from wanting to take advantage of others, but they can be created either
to take advantage of others or to restrain those who would.
• "Women, especially, should be allowed the use and benefit of whatever native strength their
Maker has seen fit to give them. It is essential to the virtue of society that they should be
allowed the freest moral action, unfettered by ignorance, and unintimidated by authority: for
it is unquestioned and unquestionable that if women were not weak, men could not be
wicked: that if women were bravely pure, there must be an end to the dastardly tyranny of
licentiousness." Saying that her basic principle is that if people are better educated and less
imprisoned, they'll make better decisions and are less likely to get into trouble.

22.3 The Successful Author
As her success and recognition grew, Martineau travelled widely in England, Europe, America,
and the Middle East. These travels produced a number of travel guides to specific regions, books
that were much more than the usual travelogues popular at the time. In addition to descriptions
of scenery and places of interest, she described and analyzed the social, political, class, and religious
structures of the various countries. In particular, Society in America ([1837]) 1994) and How to
Observe Manners and Morals ([1838] 1989) are important precursors to what would eventually
become the discipline of sociology.

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