Angelina Grimke's Letter To Catharine Beecher

Summary #2: Angelina Grimke’s Letter To Catharine Beecher Angelina Grimke’s letter to Catharine Beecher addresses the immorality and injustice faced by women in this time period. She begins her letter by basically saying that a lot can be learned from slavery in terms of morality and human rights than any other means in the world. Comparing the rights of all men, ranging from royalty to slaves, she says their rights are based upon the moral nature of man. She then states that, “the circumstance of sex could not give to man higher rights and responsibilities, than to woman”(i) if that rights were indeed founded in moral being. She thinks that differences in gender are completely irrelevant when considering human rights, just as skin color or eye color should be. She thus presents the idea that, our responsibilities are decided by; the differences in our lives, our specific abilities and talents, and the era that we live in, and not by gender. Grimke says that this “regulation of duty by the mere circumstance of sex”(ii) has lead to the evils and inequality faced between the virtues of men versus women. She says that men are “the warrior.”(iii) They have qualities such as sternness, and those like it, which
She says that, despite popular belief, woman was never given to man by God, but created from him in the image of God himself. She gives a second party account of the creation of Eve stating, “the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”(x) She says Adam recognized her as a part of himself as a companion and equal, standing on the same level of human rights, only under God himself. The idea of woman being “the last best gift of God to man”(xi) has created the evils which have ultimately, “taken her out of the exalted scale of existence and crushed her down under the feet of man.”