Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/293

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
MARRIAGE.
273

controlling Mind, for warding off pulmonary disease, if you understood the Science of Being.

Man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like Origin. that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of Being, and God is his Father.

Civil law establishes very unfair differences between the rights of the two sexes. Christian Science furnishes The rights of woman. no precedent for such injustice, and civilization mitigates it in some measure. Still, it is a marvel why usage should accord woman less honor than does either Christian Science or civilization.

Our laws are not impartial, to say the least, in their discrimination as to the person, property, and parental Unfair laws. claims of the two sexes. If the elective franchise for women will remedy the evil, without encouraging difficulties of greater magnitude, let us hope it will be granted. A very feasible as well as rational means of improvement, at present, is the improvement of society in general, and the achievement of a nobler race for legislation.

If a dissolute husband deserts his wife, certainly the wronged and, perchance, impoverished woman should be allowed to collect her own wages, enter into business agreements, hold real estate, deposit funds, and hold her children free from his interference.

Want of social equality is a crying evil, occasioned by the selfishness of the world. Our forefathers exercised their faith in the direction taught by the Apostle James, when he said: “Pure religion and undefiled, before God

18