State of the Unions

Well, we all know that "history is written by the winners" and "behind every successful man there is a surprised woman", but...  ever wondered what really happened back in 1776?


Yep. You got it.
The guys simply fleeced their wives:

The Declaration of Independence
In HOUSE OF COURTSHIP, June 19, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of Wives in the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one gender to dissolve the marital bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all spouses are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain tendency to toy with unalienable Rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Marriages were instituted among womenkind, deriving their just powers from the consent of the wed, --That whenever any Form of Marriage becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Wives to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Marriages, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Marriages long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that womenkind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Marriage, and to provide new Partners for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Mrses; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of marital Life. The history of the present Spouses is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Mrses. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have refused their Assent to Remodeling, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

They have forbidden their Wives to carry out Shopping of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till their Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, they have utterly neglected to attend to them.

They have threatened to refuse accommodation to large districts of Women, unless those Women would relinquish the right of Gossip at the Public Gatherings, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

They have called together Festivities at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of our personal Accessories, for the sole purpose of fatiguing us into compliance with their measures.

They have dissolved Representative Spouses repeatedly, for opposing with womanly firmness their invasions on the rights of the Wives.

They have refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be collected; whereby the marital powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the Women at large for their exercise; the Wives remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

They have endeavoured to produce overpopulation of the States; for that purpose reinforcing the Laws of Procreation for Foreigners and Natives alike; encouraging others in their procreation hither, and lowering the conditions of new Appropriations of Babes.

They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Acts for establishing marital powers.

They have made Wives dependent on their Will alone, for the tenure of their Wardrobes, and the amount and payment of their Apparel.

They have erected a multitude of New Husbands, and sent them hither to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

They have kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Organs without the consent of our Bodies.

They have affected to render the Gentlemen Clubs independent of and superior to the Civilized power.

They have combined with others to subject us to Chores foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws:

For Quartering their large Bodies among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Adultery which they should commit on the female Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with other representatives of the Mankind:

For imposing Sexes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Size:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Fiancees:

For abolishing the free System of English Teahouses in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary Tavern, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Garters, abolishing our most valuable Bras, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Marriages:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

They have abdicated Marriage here, by declaring us out of their Protection and waging Dispute against us.

They have plundered our meats, ravaged our Petticoats, burnt our Gowns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

They are at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Husbands to compleat their works of tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized household.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Spouse whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free household.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our brethren-in-law. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Wives of the united States of America, in General Teahouse, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good Wives of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these Women are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to their respective Husbands, and that all marital connection between them and the Mankind, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Women, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Women may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire:
Mrs. Josiah Bartlett, Mrs. William Whipple, Mrs. Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
Mrs. John Hancock, Mrs. Samual Adams, Mrs. John Adams, Mrs. Robert Treat Paine, Mrs.Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Mrs. Stephen Hopkins, Mrs. William Ellery

Connecticut:
Mrs. Roger Sherman, Mrs. Samuel Huntington, Mrs. William Williams, Mrs. Oliver Wolcott

New York:
Mrs. William Floyd, Mrs. Philip Livingston, Mrs. Francis Lewis, Mrs. Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Mrs. Richard Stockton, Mrs. John Witherspoon, Mrs. Francis Hopkinson, Mrs. John Hart, Mrs. Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Mrs. Robert Morris, Mrs. Benjamin Rush, Mrs. Benjamin Franklin, Mrs. John Morton, Mrs. George Clymer, Mrs. James Smith, Mrs. George Taylor, Mrs. James Wilson, Mrs. George Ross

Delaware:
Mrs. Caesar Rodney, Mrs. George Read, Mrs. Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Mrs. Samuel Chase, Mrs. William Paca, Mrs. Thomas Stone, Mrs. Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
Mrs. George Wythe, Mrs. Richard Henry Lee, Mrs. Thomas Jefferson, Mrs. Benjamin Harrison, Mrs. Thomas Nelson, Jr., Mrs. Francis Lightfoot Lee, Mrs. Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
Mrs. William Hooper, Mrs. Joseph Hewes, Mrs. John Penn

South Carolina:
Mrs. Edward Rutledge, Mrs. Thomas Heyward, Jr., Mrs. Thomas Lynch, Jr., Mrs. Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Mrs. Button Gwinnett, Mrs. Lyman Hall, Mrs. George Walton