SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo & Deborah Madsen):

In chapters 24 and 26 Stow draws a parallel between human responsibility towards animals (considered a lower species) and man’s responsibility towards woman (considered a lower class), which he has unjustly subjugated. The rest of the book aims to expose the wrongs of the Probate Courts and to change the law in respect to marital and property rights. In the First Preface Stow gives a heated exposition of her motives for writing: her dispossession of her husband’s estate, corrupted courts and the fundamental injustice of the law with regards to women). The Second Preface begins by stating that she is not a hater of "manhood" (i.e. mankind) nor is she seeking attention; rather, she is responding to the necessity that evil be denounced and society reformed. She then defends her use of virulent language against readers who “urged [her] to modify the general tone of the subjects treated in this revised edition” (9) by pointing out that “some one must use ‘strong language’ (it is the only suitable and appropriate drapery for a reformer to clothe thought in), to rouse the careless, the indifferent, the supine” (8).

XXIV. The History of a Pet Dog

Stow tells of the legal battle that followed her husband’s death, framed around the question of the ownership of their dog, Jack. While she claims that her husband had given her the dog (a transaction which her sister witnessed), other accounts claim that he gave it to one of his friends on his deathbed, when he was in Europe and she was not with him. She relates this injustice to the numerous others that befall widows because they have no legal existence and therefore no right to property.

Some people have no fellowship with dogs: I have. I have found them faithful friends. They never turned on me with a viper’s fang, in payment for kindnesses rendered, as some human creatures have; they never have sought to heat my enemies, or cool my friends, as some human creatures have; they never have been summer friends, and turned a cold shoulder during the winter of adversity, as some human creatures have. They are true till death: they are not humans. Dr. Stone of this city once gave a lecture, the subject of which was "The Intelligence of Animals." Mr. Stow wrote him a note the next day, in which he said, "Bravo for you, my boy! The more I know of dogs, the less I think of men” (264-65).

Jack [the dog] is safe among admiring friends, enjoying a ripe doghood --if I may use the expression; and why not? He is far more worthy of the compound than many a cur that goes on two legs instead of four; he is brave, honest, and true, and would talk if he could; he tells me every time I go to see him how much he loves me, and how much he would like to go home with me, in his own eloquent dog-language; he is a tried friend that I am proud of. Mr. Stow used to say that he understood the English language perfectly. To those who are fond of dumb animals, and study their ways, many things concerning them are perfectly explainable that may appear very absurd to those that have no love for the lower animals (268-69).

If Jack has no voice because he is not considered human, Stow is also denied a voice and for the same reason: “wherever right is maintained, I am a law-abiding -- what? not a citizen -- A NON-ENTITY!” (271).

XXVI. In Transitu under Difficulties

Stow recounts a train journey during which she had to travel second-class and realized that the second-class carriage also functioned as the smoking compartment. Since smoking was prohibited in the first-class carriages there was no smoking compartment there; however, the second-class passengers had to endure the smoke around them because they could not afford the ticket to move to first-class. Stow sees this as an issue that affects women disproportionately. “This cruel injustice falls entirely upon women, -- people who earn and have the least money. Every man can go second-class or emigrant, because every man nearly uses the ‘devil’s weed’ in some form or other. Is not this cruelty to animals, for protectors thus to torture the protected? Where’s Bergh?” (318). Stow ironically adopts the position that women are treated more as if they were animals rather than human to make the point that only men are treated as fully human.

Throughout the text she returns to the concept of “right against might” (9), including women and animals, specifically dogs. At other moments she uses the terms “subjugator” and “protector,” which are more usually applied to the treatment of non-human animals, in place of the terms “husband” or “man” to signify variations within the self-appointed role of woman’s caretaker adopted by men.