In our Scotch neighborhood many men still retained the old feudal ideas of women and property.

Fathers, at their death, would will the bulk of their property to the eldest son, with the proviso that the mother was to have a home with him.

Hence it was not unusual for the mother, who had brought all the property into the family, to be made an unhappy dependent on the bounty of an uncongenial daughter-in-law and a dissipated son.

The tears and complaints of the women who came to my father for legal advice touched my heart and early drew my attention to the injustice and cruelty of the laws.

As the practice of the law was my father's business, I could not exactly understand why he could not alleviate the sufferings of these women.