2 quotations linked to Eighty Years and More by or associated with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Individual sovereignty, conscience, education, women’s rights, family law, public reform and the development of independent judgment.
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
“The individual was primary; the State, the Church, society, the family, secondary.”
The hierarchy places inherent personhood before social institutions, arguing that family, church, society, and government should serve rather than erase individual conscience and dignity.
Source note: Eighty Years and More, Chapter XIV; Stanton contrasts the primacy of individual conscience with older ideas that subordinate the person to institutions.
“The true standpoint from which to view this question is individual sovereignty, individual happiness.”
Stanton makes the individual rather than an institution the starting point for judging intimate social arrangements, linking personal sovereignty with the pursuit of happiness.
Source note: Eighty Years and More, Chapter XIV, “Views on Marriage and Divorce”; Stanton frames marriage and divorce through individual sovereignty and individual happiness.