Making a Stand

Fanny Fern’s, "A Law More Nice Than Just", was written when it was the woman’s job to stay at home all day and clean house. Fanny Fern was the type of woman that wanted to be active and not cooped up in a house all day. I can easily understand where she is coming from because if I put myself in her situation I would be exactly like she is. When she decides that she is tired of waiting around on her husband to get home from wherever he goes, she wants to live a life in the man’s shoes. Her decision to do this would have most likely been accepted in the modern age because our world has changed quite a bit since then. It was illegal for women to dress as men, but Fanny didn’t care. She was tired of feeling unequal.

When she told her husband that she was going to dress up as a man and go out with him, he was in shock that she said that. As she began putting on the clothes, he began to laugh. She said of him, “Tailors must be a stingy set, I remarked, to be so sparing of their cloth, as I struggled into a pair of their handiwork, undeterred by the vociferous laughter of the wretch who had solemnly vowed to “cherish me” through all my tribulations.” This is very humorous to me because he is laughing at her while she is getting dressed as a man, and she is complaining saying he is supposed to “cherish her” as a man. Then it goes on to say, “Still no reply from Mr. Fern, who lay on the floor, faintly ejaculating, between his fits of laughter, ‘Oh, my! by Jove—oh! by Jupiter!’.” I think Mr. Fern is laughing at her because he thinks she will stop, when in fact this drives her to dress as a man even more. As they began to walk she lead, and he drug behind her. Thinking to herself, “Oh, Fanny! Oh, my! but none of these things moved me, and if I don’t have nicely-fitting suit of my own to wear rainy evenings, it is because---well, there are difficulties in the way.” I thought this was really funny because she refers to her female parts as difficulties, which is understandable when she is trying to fit in men’s clothing. At the very end of the story she states, “I’ve as good a right to preserve the healthy body God gave me, as if I were not a woman.” When she says this, she is talking about keeping her parts and still being able to dress as a man. I respect Fanny Fern very much in this story because she is tired of putting up with the men getting to do whatever they please while she sits at home. I think she takes a great stand about how women are really taken advantage of when she decides to go out with her husband dressed as a man!