Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences 1815-1897 (1898)

The book opens with

No question is more important than freeing women from past political, religious and social dogmas

Their wordsTo me there was no question so important as the emancipation of women from the dogmas of the past, political, religious, and social.

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this book, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The book prints chapter headings its extracted text does not preserve, so the claims below are in the book's order but not grouped. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
No question is more important than freeing women from past political, religious and social dogmas

Their wordsTo me there was no question so important as the emancipation of women from the dogmas of the past, political, religious, and social.
Our reading
Abolitionists who felt the slave's wrongs were blind to the equal legal wrongs of their own mothers, wives and sisters

Their wordsIt struck me as very remarkable that abolitionists, who felt so keenly the wrongs of the slave, should be so oblivious to the equal wrongs of their own mothers, wives, and sisters, when, according to the common law, both classes occupied a similar legal status.
Our reading
A liberal divorce law is wise

Their wordsIn listening to the facts in her case, my mind was fully made up as to the wisdom of a liberal divorce law.
Our reading
The early case for liberal divorce was not wrong, only made before people were ready to hear it

Their wordsWhat I said on divorce thirty-seven years ago seems quite in line with what many say now. The trouble was not in what I said, but that I said it too soon, and before the people were ready to hear it.
Our reading
Governments, religions and scriptures are human inventions, and women who see this will no longer be oppressed by claims of divine command

Their wordsWhen women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that Bibles, prayerbooks, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brain of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of "Thus saith the Lord."
Our reading
Women owe their liberty to no religion; their religious nature has always been perverted to subject them

Their wordsI took the ground that woman was not indebted to any form of religion for the liberty she now enjoys, but that, on the contrary, the religious element in her nature had always been perverted for her complete subjection.
Our reading
The Pentateuch's writers made God jealous and revengeful, and no other books so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman

Their wordsSurely the writers had a very low idea of the nature of their God. They make Him not only anthropomorphic, but of the very lowest type, jealous and revengeful, loving violence rather than mercy. I know no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.

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