1859 [WOMEN'S RIGHTS]. Rare Work Arguing for Female Sexual Sovereignty in Marriage.

Very scarce work, the second of two on the subject, by noted abolitionist and women's rights advocate, Henry Clarke Wright [1797-1870], arguing for the sexual rights of married women. 

Clarke argued that marriage did not imply the right of the man to impose unwanted sex and the resultant pregnancy on his wife against her will, and called "unwilling maternity" "the greatest outrage one human being can perpetrate on another."

In that vein, Wright also blamed the rise in abortions among married women on "selfishly sensual husbands" who essentially raped their wives. It was not until 1978 [Oregon v. Rideout] that the first man was found guilty of raping his wife. Prior to 1976, the crime did not exist according to American jurisprudence because of a "marital exception" to the legal code. 

An important and uncommon published work from a man arguing for women's rights in the mid 19th century. Rather scarce in the trade. 

Wright, Henry C. The Unwelcome Child; Or, The Crime of an Undesigned and Undesired Maternity. Boston. Bela Marsh. 1859. 119pp.

Textually good and clean, but essentially unbound.