The groom who gave his power away at the altar, in 1855

Lucy Stone had decided never to marry. In the America of the 1850s a wife had no right to her own wages, her own property or even the guardianship of her children, and Stone, who had set out to speak for the end of slavery and for women’s rights, would not put herself under a husband’s legal power.

Henry Blackwell changed her mind with persistence and with principle. When they married on May 1, 1855, she kept her own name, which shocked people at the time, and the word “obey” was taken out of the vows. Together they published a protest against the marriage laws themselves, refusing to accept the superiority those laws gave the husband.

Think about what that meant for him. Every legal advantage of the age was his for the taking, and on his wedding day he declined it in writing, for anyone to read. They went on to work side by side for decades, founding a suffrage association and a newspaper together.

Every female-led marriage begins with some version of that moment: a man putting down something he was handed and never earned.