Summary Of Sarah Grimke's Legal Disabilities Of Women

Most African Americans were enslaved in the 1800s in America, especially in the south. This time period was also a time when women were not receiving adequate rights compared to men. Abolitionists, those working to end slavery, began coming together to fight the evils of slavery. Fredrick Douglass, a runaway slave, formed a new life after escaping by giving talks, working to abolish slavery, and wrote a narrative of his whole life and got it published to help the movement to abolish slavery. In 1837, Sarah M. Grimke wrote, “Legal Disabilities of Women” which compared women's rights to those of a slave. Sarah Grimke compares white American married women to slaves because she is infuriated with some laws that take away certain rights from women

and she wants women to have equality, but while some laws do give slaves and women some similar rights it is simply not right to compare a slaves life to a white married woman life due to the strenuous and grueling life a slave lives. Sarah Grimke’s comparison is accurate because she explains in the end of her article how she understands a white American married women’s life is not as bad as a slave’s life she just feels that they both do not have all of the rights that they deserve.
The status of white American married women and African American slaves were different in they lived two different lifestyles and had different things that they did throughout the day, but they did have some similarities, especially in the aspect of the rights that they had. The main similarity between the status of the slave and white women was that they were both considered to be “property.” When Douglas’ slave owner, Captain Anthony, died Douglas wrote, “I was immediately sent for, to be evaluated with the other property. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine” (265). This shows how slaves were thought of no more than an animal, something that will just bring the slaveowner wealth through physical labor. Married white American women also had rights that made them feel like a sense of property, though not as severe as the way slaves were considered property. Sarah Grimke writes, “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being, or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband under whose wing, protection and cover she performs everything” (1). What Grimke is explaining is that the man takes control of everything that the women owns after marriage and they become one person, but the man has all the power to do what he wants with what they own, even whatever the female owned before they became married. In both senses, the slaves and women are being “absorbed” by the master or husband as he takes complete control over them and what they own. Another similarity of slaves and married white women is the cruel way that they are spoken to, they are both disrespected. Slave overseers often treated the slaves with much disrespect and cruelty to scare them and keep them in order. Grimke points out that “The slaveholder does kill his slave by moderate correction, as the law allows; and many a husband, among the poor, exercises the right given him by the law, of degrading women by personal chastisement” (3). Men feel a sense of authority over both slaves and women to talk down on them in order to feel more powerful. Lastly, Women and slaves are similar in that they both can be are restricted from practicing what they wish, such as religious beliefs. With women it depends on the beliefs of her husband as “women are not unfrequently restrained of the liberty of going to places of worship by irreligious husbands” (3). The husband of a women could at his own desire stop his wife from practicing what she believes, giving women a sense that men are able to dictate what they believe. Slaves at this time could be punished if they were caught practicing a religion that the slave overseer or slave master does not approve of. White American married women and slaves both did have restrictions on their rights, but with some similarities came a lot of differences between the status between these two groups of people.
Slaves at the time simply had no choice of whether they became a slave or not, most were slaves and at this point all of their children were just being born right into slavery.

Though single women were also not equal to men, women at least had the option to remain single in order to not be a mans “property.” One of the largest differences between a white women and slaves is the living conditions that they live under. Most white American married women lived in a house with their own family and received more than the bare necessities to stay alive. Slaves on the other hand only received “their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pork, or its equivalence in fish, and one bushel of corn meal” (239). The slaves also received only one pair of linen clothing each year and one blanket, no bed. Compared to the way white women lived the slaves condition of bare minimum resources to survive was brutal. A method used on slaves in order to keep them enslaved was to make sure that they do not get educated. Douglass shares a time when Mrs. Auld was teaching him the alphabet when he was the Auld’s slave and her husband found out and Douglass wrote, “Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it is unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” (256). By keeping slaves uneducated, men were able to deem them as an inferior race and also prevent them from

becoming smart and possible becoming successful all in order to keep the African American race enslaved. So, slaves, unlike women, were forbid from being thought anything educational. Severe penalties would come to anyone caught educating a slave. Women also are not lined up, evaluated, then split apart from their families like many slaves are. Women do not have to live in fear of getting physically abused or a family member getting physically abused at any second. Douglas recalls times where he was “awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered in blood. No word, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose” (237). This shows that men feel no sympathy for a slave in any way, no matter what a slave does the slave overseer will do what he dessires. A slaves life is a lot different from that of a white American married women, more painful, more exhausting, and filled with more fear.
Sarah Grimke makes a comparison between salves for several different reasons.

Grimke is obviously upset with the status of American white women and how they are being denied several rights that they rightfully deserve, so she is writing to shine light on this fact and work toward women equality. Sarah uses slaves as a comparison in order for her voice to be heard because more people will take note of this alarming comparison when seen in a headline and be more interested. Grimke was not only looking out for the women though, she was also an abolitionist writer and this comparison also shows how bad the life of a slave is, so her comparison is not only for women’s equality, but it is also for the equality of

slaves.
Comparing a slaves life to anyones life during this time period is going to be a stretch. Slaves had it tough and Sarah Grimke realized that. Her realization that a slaves life is tough is exactly what makes her comparison an accurate comparison. Grimke compares some similar rights that married American white women and slaves have in common, such as no right to vote, but never tries to compare the everyday life of a women to that of a slave. Grimke says, “I do not wish by any means to intimate that the condition of free women can be compared to that of slaves in suffering, or in degradation” (5). Sarah Grimke does a very good job in making connections between comparing rights between women and slaves and she is specific enough to make sure her audience knows she is not over exaggerating and making connections between ways of life between slaves and women. Grimke obviously sees and understand what slaves, such as Douglass, go through as Douglas states, “I suffered much from hunger, but much more from cold” (252). This shows the amount of difficulties that slaves had to go through everyday and how their hardships are no where near that of an American white women at the time so to compare the everyday life and way that slaves and women live would be over exaggerated and inaccurate.
The 1800s were a time of strong division, especially between races. It is a time when movements such as the women rights movement and the abolishment of slavery began to be spoken of. Fredrick Douglas and Sarah Grimke both are writers who are trying get equal rights for slaves and all women. Sarah’s comparison a slaves rights and a white American married woman is accurate in that it points out similarities in rights, while acknowledging the worse lifestyle that a slave has. Fredrick Douglas makes this obvious in his personal account of living the gruesome of a slave. Both Douglas and Grimke are aware of what is going on in America at this time and are aware of the immoral acts that are taking place and they both work tirelessly to make a difference and they do.