The woman above alluded to now said, "I would have said No in the _right_ place, if I had been allowed to do it!" I then went to the house of the other bride and gave her similar instructions.

The surprise of the women who came in from the neighborhood, that the girl should have the right to say yes or no, was most amusing and suggestive.

That one thing seemed to give them new ideas of the dignity and honor of woman under the Gospel.
Marriage in the East is so generally a matter of bargain and sale, or of parental convenience and profit, or of absolute compulsion, that young women have little idea of exercising their own taste or judgment in the choice of a husband.
This was new doctrine for the city of Heliogabalus, and, as was to be expected, the news soon spread through the town that the next evening a marriage ceremony was to be performed by the Protestant minister, in which the bride was to have the privilege of refusing the man if she wished.

And, what was even more outrageous to Hums ideas of propriety, it was rumored that the brides were to walk home from the Church _in company with their husbands_! This was too much, and certain of the young Humsites, who feared the effect of conferring such unheard-of rights and privileges on women, leagued together to mob the brides and grooms if such a course were attempted.

We heard of the threat and made ample preparations to protect Protestant women's rights.
The evening came, and with it such a crowd of men, women and children, as had never assembled in that house before.