Blackwell and asked him to accept its principles as what she considered the relationship between husband and wife should be. Protest against marriage laws Blackwell also proposed that as part of their marriage ceremony, he would "renounce all the privileges which the law confers upon me which are not strictly mutual" and "pledge myself to never avail myself of them under any circumstances." The wedding took place at Stone's home in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, on May 1, 1855, with Stone's close friend and coworker Thomas Wentworth Higginson officiating. During the ceremony, Blackwell read the protest that both had signed: While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it our duty to declare that this act on our part implies no sanction of or promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man should possess. We protest especially against the laws which give the husband: 1. The custody of the wife's person. 2. The exclusive control and guardianship of their children. 3. The sole ownership of her personal and use of her real estate, unless previously settled upon her or placed in the hands of trustees, as in the case of minors, idiots, and lunatics. 4. The absolute right to the product of her industry. 5. Also against laws which give to the widower so much larger and more permanent interest in the property of the deceased wife than they give to the widow in that of the deceased husband. 6. Finally, against the whole system by which the legal existence of the wife is suspended during marriage, so that, in most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence, nor can she make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own name, nor inherit property. We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited except for crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership and so recognized by law; that until it is so recognized, married partners should provide against the radical injustice of present laws by every means in their power. We believe that where