True, as yet, there is nothing officially before us, but it is well known that the object of these unsexed women is to overthrow the most sacred of our institutions, to set at defiance the divine law which declares man and wife to be one, and establish on its ruins what will be in fact and in principle but a species of legalized adultery.
It is, therefore, a matter of duty, a duty to ourselves, to our consciences, to our constituents and to God, who is the source of all law and of all obligations, to reflect long and deliberately before we shall even seem to countenance a movement so unholy as this.

Are we, sir, to give the least countenance to claims so preposterous, disgraceful and criminal as are embodied in this address?
Are we to put the stamp of truth upon the libel here set forth, that men and women in the matrimonial relation are to be equal?
We know that God created man as the representative of the race; that after his creation, his Creator took from his side the material for woman's creation; and that, by the institution of matrimony, woman was restored to the side of man, and they became one flesh and one being, he the head....
But we are now asked to have the ordinance of matrimony based on jealousy and distrust; and, as in Italy, so in this country, should this mischievous scheme be carried out to its legitimate results, we, instead of reposing safe confidence against assaults upon our honor in the love and affection of our wives, shall find ourselves obliged to close the approaches to those assaults by the padlock.
The petitions were referred to a select committee of the Senate and the Assembly, which Miss Anthony addressed.

The Albany Argus reported her speech as follows: Miss Anthony said that she appeared on behalf of the signers of the petitions and tendered to the Legislature thanks for the courteous manner in which they had been received.

They asked that husband and wife should be tenants in common of property, but with a partition upon the death of one; that a wife should be competent to discharge trusts and powers, the same as a single woman; that the statute in respect to married women's property should be made effectual, and the wife's property descend as though she had been unmarried; that married women should be entitled to execute letters testamentary and of administration; that they should have power to make contracts and transact business; that they should be entitled to their own earnings, subject to their proportionate liability for support of children; that post nuptial acquisitions should belong equally to husband and wife; that married women should stand on the same footing with single as parties or witnesses in legal proceedings; that they should be equal guardians of their minor children; that the homestead should be inviolable and inalienable for widows and their children; that laws in relation to divorce should be revised, and habitual drunkenness be made cause of absolute divorce; that the preference of males in descent of real estate should be abolished; that women should exercise the right of suffrage, be eligible to all offices, occupations and professions, entitled to act as jurors, eligible to employment in public offices; that a law should be passed extending the masculine designation in all statutes to females.
The committee, James L.Angle, of Monroe county, chairman, presented a dignified and respectful report, denying the petition for suffrage but recommending that the laws be so changed as to allow the wife to collect and control her own earnings if the family were neglected by the husband, and to require the written consent of the mother to the apprenticeship of her children.

The Legislature, however, refused to pass such a bill, as did all succeeding Legislatures until 1860.
There was nothing but to go to work again, for Miss Anthony and her co-laborers were determined not to relax their efforts until the obnoxious laws against women were repealed.