Editing Lucy Stone (section)

=== Issues of divorce ===

Before her own marriage, Stone felt that women should be allowed to divorce drunken husbands, to formally end a "loveless marriage" so that "a true love may grow up in the soul of the injured one from the full enjoyment of which no legal bond had a right to keep her.<ref name=Kerr156>Kerr, 1992, p. 156.</ref> Whatever is pure and holy, not only has a right to be, but it has a right, also, to be recognized, and further, I think it has no right not to be recognized."<ref name=Hays169>Hays, 1961, p. 169.</ref> Stone's friends often felt differently about the issue; "Nettee" Brown wrote to Stone, in 1853, that she was not ready to accept the idea, even if both parties wanted divorce.<ref name=Hays169 /> Stanton was less inclined to clerical orthodoxy; she was very much in favor of giving women the right to divorce,<ref>Hays, 1961, p. 168.</ref> eventually coming to the view that the reform of marriage laws was more important than women's voting rights.<ref name=Kerr156 />

In the process of planning for women's rights conventions, Stone worked against Stanton to remove from any proposed platform the formal advocacy of divorce. Stone wished to keep the subject separate, to prevent the appearance of moral laxity.<ref name=Kerr72>Kerr, 1992, p. 72.</ref> She pushed "for the right of woman to the control of her own person as a moral, intelligent, accountable being."<ref name=Kerr72 /> Other rights were certain to fall into place, after women were given control of their own bodies. Years later, Stone's position on divorce would change.