Stanton's father, Daniel Cady, was a Federalist attorney and later became a New York Supreme Court Justice. Even while she was still a young girl, she took pleasure in reading her father's law books. She enjoyed going into debates with her father's law clerks about legal issues. This early introduction to law made Stanton realize the inequity of the law for men and women, especially married women. Her realization that married women had practically no rights to property, jobs, earnings, and custody over their children led her to the path of her fight for the women's rights movement.