The transition of marriage in earlier times as that of convenience into a union of equal souls is discussed in relation to four types of marriage, which Fuller ranks in ascending order. The first type, the household partnership, is merely convenience and mutual dependence. The man provides for the house, the woman tends to it. The second type is mutual idolatry where the man and woman find in the other all perfection to the exclusion of the rest of the world. The intellectual companionship is the next highest form of marriage. In this, man and woman are friends, confidants in thought and feeling with a mutual trust, but rarely love. Above all of these forms is the highest marriage, the religious union. It envelopes the other three to include mutual dependence, idolatry, and respect. The man and woman find themselves as equals on a "pilgrimage towards a common shrine." Fuller also makes brief mention of the life of "old maids", often looked down upon because they are not married, but she says that they have the opportunity for close communion with the divine which married people do not have to that extent. Fuller then looks at the differences between men and women in order to enforce that women need their intellectual and spiritual resources strengthened. She says that the souls of men and women are the same, even with differences in masculinity and femininity. The differences are not between men and women, though, for both have masculine and feminine energies, but are between individuals: "There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman." The conclusion of the essay is that before a true union can occur, each person must be an individual and self-dependent unit. For women to become such individuals, men need to remove their dominating influence, but women also need to claim themselves as self-dependent and remove themselves from man's influence. Fuller ends looking forward and making a call for the woman who will teach women to be individuals. Composition and publication history Fuller began writing her essay as she went on a trip to Chicago in 1843, perhaps inspired by a similar essay by Sophia Ripley. "The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women" was originally published in serial form for The Dial, the transcendental journal for which Fuller served as editor. Publisher Horace Greeley was impressed and encouraged Fuller to rewrite it as a