WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS.
In the fourth and fifth counts of the Declaration of Sentiments, the
Suffragists say: "Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen,
the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the
halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides." "He has made
her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead."
The following four counts all refer to a married woman's civil deadness;
and I will give them in order, and then consider the five counts together:
"He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she
earns." "He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can
commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of
her husband." "In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise
obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her
master--the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to
administer chastisement." "He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to
what shall be proper causes, and, in case of separation, to whom the
guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of
the happiness of women--the law, in all cases, going upon a false
supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands."
That the women did not find themselves, as might be supposed from their
charges, living under the edicts of the Middle Ages, is proved by their
hunt through statute-books for such of the eighteen grievances as relate
to laws. They also say that "while they had felt the insults incident to
sex, in many ways, as every proud thinking woman must, yet they had not in
their own experience endured the coarser forms of tyranny resulting from
unjust laws; but had souls large enough to feel the wrongs of others."
Until they knew what those wrongs were, it would seem they could hardly
have felt for them intelligently. It would seem, too, that the great body
of American women were also unaware that they had been, and were still
being, legally and morally robbed, enslaved, and murdered. In fact,
Suffrage speakers have been compelled to account for their unconcern by
considering it the result of long subjection, and at the same time have
had to claim that these stupid beings were fit to rule with and over men.
While the counts contain concrete statements, the closing clause--"the law
in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and
giving all power into his hands"--sets forth an abstract idea in
justification of which they furnish no proof. In the counts as they stood
in the Declaration of Sentiments, the general laws were not accused of
doing any injustice, personal or civil, to an unmarried woman, except in
reference to the one matter of withholding the vote, which they claimed
was wrong because she had an inalienable right to the ballot and was
subject to tax. Not a personal law did they ask to have changed for her
protection. They recognized the fact that, unless she was married, a woman
in the United States stood upon a legal equality with man. The hue and cry
in regard to a married woman was, that she was not treated as if _femme
sole_. The _femme sole_ could make contracts and wills, sue and be sued,
and do all and sundry in her own name that her brother could do. With a
married woman the situation was different. Will any one contend that in
the past the married woman has been held in less honor than the unmarried?
Can it be thought for a moment that the law-makers expressed their
contempt for wives and mothers, and their respect for daughters and
sisters who were unmarried? Tradition and fact, poetry and prose, romance
and reality, all go to prove that the reverential feeling of the world has
gathered about the wife and the mother. The men who made those laws turned
for their ideals of abstract justice to their mothers' faith and teaching;
and it seems most incongruous to assume, as do the Suffrage arguments,
that, while all the laws relating to women were tyrannical at some point,
those in regard to married women were the ones wherein men embodied their
most cruel and revengeful feeling. It also appears to be a gratuitous
assumption that whatever was different in the legal treatment of men and
women came from man's belief in his own supremacy, especially toward the
wife into whose hands he had committed the keeping of his home and his
honor.
In 1881, after more than thirty years of agitation of the subject, the
Suffrage leaders said: "The condition of married women under the laws of
all countries has been essentially that of slaves, until modified in some
respects, within the last quarter of a century, in the United States." And
again they said: "The change from the old common law of England, in regard
to the civil rights of women, from 1848 to the advance legislation in most
of the Northern States in 1880, marks an era both in the status of woman
as a citizen and in our American system of jurisprudence. When the State
of New York gave married women certain rights of property, the individual
existence of the wife was recognized, and the old idea that husband and
wife are one, and that one the husband, received its death-blow. From that
hour the statutes of the several States have been steadily diverging from
the old English codes. Most of the Western States copied the advance
legislation of New York, and some are now even more liberal."
This sentence contains another of the constantly recurring instances of
the methods by which the Suffrage mind jumps to unwarranted conclusions.
When the State of New York gave married women certain property rights, it
recognized their legal existence in a new way, but not their individual
existence--that had been recognized by every act of law and custom, from
the registry of their birth to that of their marriage or their death.
Socially and civilly, every woman in the United States had had opportunity
to make her individuality felt, and if there was any difference in
advantage in respect of this, it was supposed to lie with the married
woman. So true is this, that Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Mott had to hunt for
oppressive laws, and most of the women of this land have no real sense of
the great and liberal change in laws concerning married women since 1848.
I am no more approving of or admiring the old English common law, or the
canon law, concerning women, than I am approving of or admiring the law
that came to light recently in the Transvaal and would have allowed the
torture of Jameson and his men, who, as a matter of fact, were allowed to
go almost unpunished. The law of the Dutch Government in Africa belonged
to the Middle Ages; their conduct belonged to to-day. I only believe that
at the time when it was possible for one man to frame for another man such
laws of physical and mental torment as every code reveals, their laws for
women were the best they could devise, and were those which led to the
freedom of the women of to-day. A law of England still favors only the
first-born son, and he only because he is the firstborn. What wonder that
girls have been denied succession; and what an evidence of man's desire to
show favor and not the "insult incident to sex," that he has placed woman
on thrones upon which he has had to sustain her by main force.
There is no need that I should darken my pages with the English laws
concerning married women. The Suffrage leaders have spread them abroad;
Blackstone says they were intended for woman's protection and benefit, and
adds the remark, "So great a favorite is the female sex with the laws of
England." If I quoted them, I should be constrained to quote barbarous
laws concerning men of the same era, and to note the lack of all laws
concerning the brute creation; for neither of these matters is touched by
Suffrage writers. Dr. Jacobi is willing to say that "in the eye of the
law, the married white woman in the North was as devoid of personality as
the African slave in the South," and she also says: "By another error of
interpretation, certain laws which remain on the statute-book, or which
have been recently added, have been considered so peculiarly favorable to
women, that they are thought to prove a legislative tendency to grant
special immunities to women so long as they consent to remain
unfranchised." Does she mean to say that the lawmakers have asked the
women if they would consent to remain unfranchised? I thought that leaving
them unfranchised without asking their consent was, in Suffrage eyes, the
very front of the offending. The laws that remain on the statute-book, and
those that have been recently added, go to prove to my mind that the old
laws were meant to be generous as well as just; second, that the trend of
legislation _is_ peculiarly favorable to woman; and, thirdly, that those
laws which between man and man might be looked upon as offsets to suffrage
equality, between man and woman could not be so considered. They were,
therefore, proper immunities for persons whose consent was not asked
through the vote because, in the nature of the difference between the
sexes, a prime requisite for compliance was lacking. Dr. Jacobi goes on to
say: "The fear has been expressed that these 'immunities' and 'privileges'
would be forfeited were the franchise conferred. And this fear has
actually been advanced as an argument--as the basis of protest against
equal suffrage." Either the law is tyrannical to women, or it is not. If
Suffrage leaders are actually talking of its privileges and immunities to
women, and trying to explain them away, we may leave the burden of proof
to them. But as to the gist of her remark in regard to the connection
between legal privileges and equal suffrage: Fear of losing the legal
immunities that are granted to both married and unmarried women on account
of their attitude as wards of the State when they are not able to assume
the first duty implied in giving up the wardship--that of physical defence
to themselves and others--is a most legitimate fear, and is a sound reason
for protest against equal suffrage. Wrapped up with the legal privileges
of women are those of their children--the rights of minors. For boys,
special privileges cease at the age of twenty-one. For girls, they do not.
Legal equality would set the boy and the girl on the same level at once.
The law of equality could know no such thing as "exemption" for the
unmarried woman, or "dower right" or "maintenance" for the married woman
that would not be equally binding on both husband and wife. In Germany,
rich American women are maintaining their land-poor husbands under legal
stress, "in the style to which they have been accustomed," because the law
of Germany is "equal" in respect to property maintenance of husband and
wife. In Ohio, where Suffrage agitation has been persistent, the
legislature in 1894 passed an act "enabling a husband, as well as a wife,
to sue and obtain alimony pending divorce proceedings."
We began by talking of legal disabilities, and, led by the Suffragists
themselves, are already discussing legal immunities.
The editors of the "History" say: "The laws affecting woman's civil rights
have been greatly improved during the past thirty years, but the political
demand has made but questionable progress, though it must be counted as
the chief influence in modifying the laws. The selfishness of man was
readily enlisted in securing woman's civil rights, while the same element
in his character antagonized her demand for political equality." If it was
his selfishness that procured woman civil rights and privileges, was it
his unselfishness that formerly denied them? The fact that the States that
granted them first, and most fully, are the ones where Suffrage has made
least progress, suggests the injustice of the charge.
But a question of real interest is, must the political demand made by
women be counted as the chief influence in modifying the laws?
In 1836, Judge Hertell presented, in the New York Legislature, a bill to
secure property rights to married women, which had been drawn up under the
supervision of the Hon. John Savage, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
and the Hon. John C. Spencer, one of the revisers of the statutes. In its
behalf Ernestine Rose and Paulina Wright Davis circulated a petition, to
which they gained only five signatures among their own sex.
Ernestine Rose was a Polish Jewess who had renounced all faith with her
own. She was an extreme communist, and before coming here to labor for
Liberalism and Woman Suffrage, she had presided over a body called "An
Association of all Classes of all Nations, without distinction of sect,
sex, party condition, or color." Paulina Wright Davis, gifted though she
was, was a radical of an extreme type. How much the character of the
advocates had to do with their failure, it is impossible to say, but it
appears to be another proof of the evil influence of Suffrage action upon
woman's progress that so good a work should have been in hands so unfitted
for it. The bill did not become a law. Mrs. Rose records that she
continued to send petitions with increased numbers of signatures until
1848-49; that from 1837 to 1848 she addressed the New York Legislature
five times, and a good many times after the latter date. That she was not
recognized as an aid to legislation seems evident from the testimony that
follows.
In the previous chapter I have quoted the editors of the "History" as
saying that the first thing that led them to demand political rights was
the discussion, in several of the State legislatures, of these property
questions in regard to married women. Another proof that they did not
inspire the early laws is seen in the following extracts from a letter
from the Hon. George Geddes, written to Mrs. Gage, in 1880, and answering
her question as to who was responsible for the Married-Woman's Property-
Rights bill, which was passed in 1848. He said:
"I have very distinct recollections of the whole history of this very
radical measure. Judge Fine, of St. Lawrence, was its originator, and he
gave me his reasons for introducing the bill. He said that he married a
lady who had some property of her own, which he had, all his life, tried
to keep distinct from his, that she might have the benefit of her own, in
the event of any disaster happening to him in pecuniary matters. He had
found much difficulty, growing out of the old laws, in this effort to
protect his wife's interests.... I, too, had special reasons for desiring
this change in the law. I had a young daughter, who, in the then condition
of my health, was quite likely to be left in tender years without a
father, and I very much desired to protect her in the little property I
might be able to leave.... I believe this law originated with Judge Fine,
without any outside prompting. On the third day of the session he gave
notice of his intention to introduce it, and only one petition was
presented in favor of the bill, and that came from Syracuse, and was due
to the action of my personal friends.... We all felt that the laws
regulating married women's, as well as married men's, rights demanded
careful revision and adaptation to our times and to our civilization....
In reply to your inquiries in regard to debates that preceded the action
of 1848, I must say I know of none, and I am quite sure that in our long
discussions no allusion was made to anything of the kind."
It would thus appear that neither Mrs. Gage, nor Mrs. Stanton, nor Miss
Anthony knew the names of the proposer and defenders of the bill that
opened the way in New York for all the liberal legislation that has
followed, and thirty years after its passage they inquired whether any
debates had preceded it. Certainly, then, their own had not. It is also
evident how much "selfishness" prompted the bill.
In a pamphlet published by the New York Woman-Suffrage Association to
report their proceedings during the Constitutional Convention of 1894, it
is recorded that Mr. F. B. Church, of Alleghany, presented an appeal from
his county asking for the suffrage. In the course of his remarks he said:
"Sir, beginning in 1848, the male citizens of the State of New York, not
at the clamor of the women, as I understand it, but actuated by a sense of
justice, began to remove the disabilities under which women labored at
that time. Gradually, from that time on, the barriers had been stricken
away, until, in 1891, I believe, the last impediments were removed."
In 1844, Rhode Island had passed property laws for married women. In 1848-
9 Connecticut and Texas, as well as New York, did so, apparently
uninfluenced by anything except their "sense of justice." In 1850-'52
Alabama and Maine passed such laws. In 1853 New Hampshire, Indiana,
Wisconsin, and Iowa changed their laws in this respect. They moved forward
in this reform, as did the other States, before there was even a beginning
of Suffrage agitation in them.
In 1847, Mrs. C. J. II. Nichols, who afterward became a Suffrage worker,
addressed to the voters of Vermont a series of editorials setting forth
the property disabilities of women. In October of that year, Hon. Larkin
Mead, moved, he said, by her presentation, introduced a bill into the
Senate, which, becoming a law, secured to the wife real estate owned by
her at marriage, or acquired by gift, devise, or inheritance during
marriage, with the rents, issues, and profits, as against any debts of the
husband; but to make a sale or conveyance of either her realty or its use
valid, it must be the joint act of husband and wife. She might by last
will and testament dispose of her lands, tenements, hereditaments, and any
interest therein descendable to her heirs, as if "sole." Mrs. Nichols says
that in 1852 she drew up a petition signed by more than two hundred
business men and tax-paying widows, asking the Legislature to make women
voters in school matters. Mrs. Nichols's report is clear, sound, definite,
and she seems to have been of real service, and to have won what she
sought. She says, "Up to 1850 I had not taken position for suffrage,
although I had shown the absurdity of regarding it as unwomanly." She
appears to have done a great deal of clever as well as earnest and
spirited talking in the West, after she had "taken position for suffrage,"
and she reports that, when she removed to Kansas, her claims were for
"equal educational rights and privileges in all the schools and
institutions of learning fostered or controlled by the State." "An equal
right in all matters pertaining to the organization and conduct of the
common schools." "Recognition of the mother's equal right with the father
to the control and custody of their mutual offspring." "Protection in
person, property, and earnings for married women and widows, the same as
for men." The first three were fully granted, the fourth was changed as to
"personal service." In her pleading for "political rights," she was
associated with John O. Wattles, and the amendment they proposed was
defeated in the Legislature.
Petitions for "Woman's Right" and changes of the laws were circulated in
Massachusetts as early as 1848. In 1849, a year after the first Suffrage
Convention, Ohio, Maine, Indiana, and Missouri, had passed laws giving to
married women the right to their own earnings. A "Memorial" was sent by
the Suffrage Association to the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1850,
from which I take the following: "We believe the whole theory of the
common law in relation to woman is unjust and degrading." (Then follows
political injustice.) "We would especially call your attention to the
legal condition of married women." (Then follow general statements and
quotations from the common law.) The attention of the memorialists was
called by the proper authorities to the fact that the statute laws of Ohio
had radically changed the general matters charged. In answering comment,
Mrs. Coe said: "The committee were perfectly aware of the existence of the
statutes mentioned, but did not see fit to incorporate them in the
petition, not only on account of their great length, but because they do
not at all invalidate the position which the petition affects to
establish--the inequality of the sexes before the law; because if the wife
departs from the conditions of the statutes, and thus comes under the
common law, they are against her." She then adds: "There are other laws
which might be mentioned, which really give woman an apparent advantage
over man; yet, having no relevancy to the subject in the petition, we did
not see fit to introduce them."
The ignorance displayed here is phenomenal. Common law is operative only
in the absence of statute law. The Ohio statute (as with all statutes)
superseded the common law; and if the woman "departs from the condition of
the statute," she suffers the penalty prescribed therein, without
reference to her previous position before the law.
One of the earliest demands made by the Suffrage Association was for a law
that should allow of absolute divorce for drunkenness; and this was soon
followed by demands for divorce for other causes. In presenting a petition
to the New York Legislature, pressing these measures, Mrs. Stanton
addressed the Assembly, and from her remarks I take the following words:
"Allow me to call the attention of that party now so much interested in
the slave of the Carolinas to the similarity in his condition and that of
the mothers, wives, and daughters of the Empire State. The negro has no
name. He is Cuffy Douglas, or Cuffy Brooks, just whose Cuffy he may chance
to be. The woman has no name. She is Mrs. Richard Roe, or Mrs. John Doe,
just whose Mrs. she may chance to be. Cuffy has no right to his earnings;
he cannot buy or sell, nor make contracts, nor lay up anything that he can
call his own. Mrs. Roe has no right to her earnings; she can neither buy,
sell, nor make contracts, nor lay up anything that she can call her own.
Cuffy has no right to his children; they may be bound out to cancel a
father's debts of honor. The white unborn child, even by the last will of
the father, may be placed under the guardianship of a stranger, a
foreigner. Cuffy has no legal right to existence; he is subject to
restraint and moderate chastisement. Mrs. Roe has no legal existence; she
has not the best right to her person. The husband has the power to
restrain and administer moderate chastisement. The prejudice against
color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It
is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way.
The negro's skin and the woman's sex are both _prima facie_ evidence that
they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man. The few
social privileges which the man gives the woman, he makes up to the negro
in civil rights. The woman may sit at the same table and eat with the
white man; the free negro may hold property and vote."
It is difficult for our thought to reach the low level from which this
comparison is made. It ignores all the moral and spiritual conceptions
that gave rise to and hallow marriage. But looking upon marriage as a mere
financial compact, and taking the laws even as they then were, a few
things may be said. "Cuffy has no name that he can call his own."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton has her own baptismal name, the name of her honored
father, and that of her honored husband, and the opportunity to make those
names more her own by personal achievement than any one's else. Her
mother, her father, her husband, and her son are as dependent upon her for
preserving the character and distinctiveness of that name, as she is upon
them. Why Lucy Stone should have put inconvenience and indignity upon both
herself and her husband for the sake of continuing to wear her father's
name instead of assuming her husband's, I never could understand. She did
not share the name she gave her child. And there is another distinction
between the nameless Cuffy and the trebly-named Saxon woman. The husband's
name was not thrust upon her. By uttering the simple monosyllable "No,"
she could decline to wear it. It was only as she consented to be mistress
of a husband's heart and home that she passed from the condition of _femme
sole_ and acquired a title and an additional name. "Cuffy has no right to
his earnings." This would be of less consequence to Cuffy if he had a
right to his master's earnings. When a right to another's earnings goes
along with the mutual relation toward a home of master and mistress, the
difference between Cuffy and Mrs. Roe is unspeakable. "Cuffy cannot buy or
sell, make contracts, nor lay up anything that he can call his own." If
Cuffy had the right to prevent his master from buying, selling, making
contracts, or laying up anything that he could call his own until Cuffy's
wants had been provided for in the most ample manner, the world would have
felt less moved over Cuffy's wrongs. "Cuffy has no right to his children."
Mrs. Roe has a right to compel Mr. Roe to bestow his name upon her
children, and to support the boys until they are twenty-one, and the girls
forever. "Cuffy has no legal right to existence." Mrs. Roe has so much
legal right to existence that she stands toward the State and toward her
husband in the relation of a preferred creditor. The State cannot call
upon her for its most arduous duties, which must however be performed in
her behalf. Her husband cannot dispose of real property without her
signature. If he dies solvent, nothing can prevent her taking a fair share
of his estate, and he may give her the whole; but if he dies bankrupt,
neither his will, nor the State, nor anything else, can make her pay one
dollar of his debts. "Cuffy is subject to restraint and moderate
chastisement." "The husband has the power to restrain and administer
moderate chastisement." The public horsewhipping of a husband by his wife
is a rare sight, but when it occurs the law is far more ready to overlook
the breach of order than it is to permit the slightest attempt at assault
and battery upon the wife. As the remaining statements have no reference
to the laws, I may excuse myself from telling how strangely beneath the
dignity of truth they seem to me. That they were urged in connection with
a bill asking for divorce for drunkenness suggests that such a plea was
made an entering wedge for the radical divorce measures that have been
advocated in Suffrage conventions. Any State would, at that time, grant
legal separation for a wife from a drunken husband, and would compel the
husband to support the wife to the extent of his means.
This matter of easier divorce has been pressed steadily from the
beginning, but with very little of the result that the Suffragists
desired.
In the Convention of the National Council of Women, which met in
Washington, D. C., in February, 1895, the Suffrage Associations were
largely represented. Their committee on divorce reform consisted of Ellen
Battelle Dietrick, Chairman, and Mary A. Livermore and Fanny B. Ames.
Their report was, in part, as follows: "In accordance with the
instructions of the Executive Committee of the Council, your chairman sent
forty-eight letters to the Governors of States and Territories, asking
each to call the attention of his legislature to the situation concerning
divorce laws, and requesting the appointment of a committee to consider
the matter, said committee to consist of an equal number of men and
women."
Here it is the same old story. Theirs is not an intelligent presentment of
changes desired, but simply a continued urging of women for personal share
in the making of the laws. In commenting upon the refusal of the Governor
of Iowa, among others, the Committee says: "And yet Iowa is one of the
States which has recently formed a commission of men to consider making
Iowa divorce laws uniform with those of all other States." The laws that
make it possible for a woman divorced in one State to be looked upon in
another State as still bound, were not petitioned against.
Uniformity in the divorce laws of the United States is one of the great
legislative reforms that are moving slowly but surely; and with that, it
appears, the Suffrage appeal has nothing to do. The Committee closed its
report by saying: "We might as well face the fact that the official
servants of the United States cherish frank contempt for woman's opinions
and wishes, and that, too, in regard to a matter which concerns the
welfare of women far more vitally than it does the welfare of men. The one
thing we should deprecate is having men make any new laws or fresh
provisions for women's protection."
In the spring of 1854 Miss Anthony and Ernestine Rose presented a petition
to the New York Legislature, and the Albany "Argus," of March 4, published
a résumé of their appeal. The demands were: That husband and wife should
be tenants in common of property, without survivorship, but with a
partition on the death of one; that a wife should be competent to
discharge trusts and powers the same as a single woman; that the statute
in respect to a married woman's property be changed so that her property
could descend as though she had been unmarried; that married women should
be entitled to execute letters testamentary, and of administration; that
married women should have power to make contracts and transact business as
though unmarried; that they should be entitled to their own earnings,
subject to their proportional liability for support of children; that
post-nuptial acquisitions should belong equally to husband and wife; that
married women should stand on the same footing as single women, as parties
or witnesses in legal proceedings; that they should be sole guardians of
the minor children; that the homestead should be inviolable and
inalienable for widows and children; that the laws in relation to divorce
should be revised, and drunkenness made cause for absolute divorce; that
better care should be taken of single women's property, that their rights
might not be lost through ignorance; that the preference of males in the
descent of real estate should be abolished; that women should exercise the
right of suffrage, and be eligible to all offices, occupations, and
professions, and to act as jurors; that courts of conciliation should be
organized as peacemakers; that a law should be enacted extending the
masculine designation in all statutes of the State to females.
I cannot fully understand Miss Anthony's position; but in some notable
particulars, not her laws but better ones are in force. When Miss Anthony
wrote to inquire who was responsible for repealing an act of 1860 for
which she had worked with her well-known zeal, Judge Charles J. Folger
replied, in part: "I think--with deference I say it--that you are not
strictly accurate in calling the legislation of 1862 a repealing one. In
but one thing did it repeal, in the sense of taking away right or power or
privilege or freedom that the Act of 1860 gave. On the contrary, in some
respects it gave more or greater."
Miss Anthony says, in comment on Judge Folger's letter: "Mr. Folger makes
mistakes in regard to the effect of these bills; quite forgetting that the
wife has never had an equal right to the joint earnings of the
copartnership, as no valuation has ever been placed on her labor in the
household, to which she gives all her time, thought, and strength. A law
securing to the wife the absolute right to half the joint earnings, and,
at the death of the husband, the same control of property and children
that he has when she dies, might make some show of justice; but it is a
provision not yet on the statute-books of any civilized nation."
If it were to be placed on the statute-book, would not one have to be
placed beside it making the wife equally responsible for the support of
the husband? The law can only take cognizance of the earnings of that
member of the firm who transacts business with the outside world. How the
proceeds of mutual labor shall be best made their own is for each husband
and wife to settle; it cannot be matter of legislation. It is interesting
to think what an increase of domesticity there would be if a business
partnership, such as Miss Anthony suggests, were demanded by the statutes.
The law, which now lays the whole support on the husband and father,
whether the wife and daughter work in the home or not, would make it
obligatory for the home partner to give all her time, thought, and
strength to labor in the household, in order to bring in her bill for
services.
The real test of the working of woman suffrage is to be found in the
answer to the question whether better laws have been framed as a
consequence?
There has been no advance in legislation in Utah or Wyoming through the
action or votes of women. The authorities whom I have consulted do not
know of any legislation in Colorado which, can be traced directly to the
presence of women in the legislature. Exception may possibly be made in
regard to the Age-of-Consent bill, which, in common with nearly all the
States, Colorado passed in favor of raising the age. That bill was
introduced by a woman member, and was strongly advocated by the others,
and it called forth an unwise discussion and a repulsive scene in the
House. A great many women have been elected to county offices, in that
State, especially those connected with the schools, and those of Clerk and
Treasurer. In answer to a question, my correspondent adds: "I do not know
of any great improvements of any kind or description in our county affairs
that have been made in the past four years."
In Wyoming, where women have voted so many years, less restraint is
imposed on liquor-selling than in most of the other States. Divorce is
granted for any one of eleven causes, after a residence of but six months.
The age of consent was only fourteen years as late as 1890. Gambling is
legal; not only do the laws mention many games with cards as lawful, but a
statute declares: "No town, city, or municipal corporation in this
Territory shall hereafter have power to prohibit, suppress or regulate any
gaming-house or game, licensed as provided for in this chapter."
"Excusable homicide" is also defined by statute. It is allowable "when
committed by accident or misfortune, in the heat of passion or sufficient
provocation, or upon a sudden combat; provided that no undue advantage is
taken, nor any dangerous weapon used, and that the killing is not done in
a cruel or unusual manner." The laws could hardly have been worse before
women voted.
It is matter of surprise to find how generally in Western towns and States
in which woman has voted or held office, "Woman has degraded politics, and
politics has degraded woman." This is not, to my mind, proof that American
women are degenerating, but it suggests that the women who have sought
political life are not representative.
Another legal demand very early made by the Suffrage leaders was that for
the entrance of women into men's colleges. So far as the State could
control this by law, it has done so. Every educational institution that
receives State support, from the primary school to the State University,
is now open to women. Cornell University, opened in October, 1868, was
aided by a State gift of a million acres, and opened its doors to women in
April, 1872. In the West, the State Universities would have been closed
for lack of pupils, during the war, if women had not attended them.
The New York State Suffrage Association includes in its report of the
doings at the Constitutional Convention a report of its legislative work
for the twenty-two years of its existence. Of the many petitions presented
during those years, but three relate to anything but Suffrage in some
form, and these did not originate with the New York Suffrage Association.
One of these three related to the bill to secure police matrons in New
York City. Work was begun in 1882 and ended in success in 1891, there
being strong opposition to it. The act to provide woman physicians for
prisons, and one making mother and father joint guardians of children,
passed in 1888 and 1892. Three of the Suffrage bills refer to school
matters, one of which was successful and two were lost. Five relate to
municipal suffrage, all of which were defeated. The remaining sixteen
bills were all for full suffrage, were all urged by many speakers, and
were all defeated. I give, in closing, Mr. Francis M. Scott's summary of
the laws of New York State that relate especially to women and are in
force to-day. Much special legislation urged by Suffrage petitions has not
been enacted at all, and much has been passed in a different form.
Suffragists say that the change of laws constitutes no reason for opposing
suffrage, but to my mind it constitutes a most excellent one. What has
been done by petition proves the power to do more by the same means, and
the fact that much of the best legislation has been against the demand of
the Suffragists or in precedence of it, proves that the rights of women
are in hands that are capable of meeting fresh interests as they arise.
Every profession and business is open to women to exactly the same extent
as to men, and already women have found a place in law, medicine,
architecture, journalism, and other professions.
Single women always could engage in commercial and mercantile pursuits
without hindrance or restriction.
Notwithstanding her marriage, a woman now holds and enjoys her separate
property, however acquired, freed from any interference or control on the
part of her husband, and from all liability for his debts.
She may sell, assign, and transfer her real and personal property, and
carry on any trade or business and perform any labor and services on her
own sole and separate account, and her earnings are her own sole and
separate property.
She may sue and be sued, as if she were unmarried, and may maintain an
action in her own name for injury to her person or character (including
actions for slander or libel), and the proceeds of any such action are her
sole and separate property.
She may contract to the same extent, with like effect in the same form as
if she were unmarried, and she and her separate estate are liable thereon.
A widow is endowed of the third part of all the real estate whereof her
husband is seized of an estate of inheritance at any time during the
marriage. This interest, termed during the lifetime of her husband
_inchoate_, attaches at the instant of marriage to all real estate the
husband then owns, and after marriage to all real estate he acquires.
Having once attached, it cannot be divested by any act of the husband, or
any of his creditors. The wife alone can release it, and she forfeits it
only in case of a divorce dissolving the marriage for her misconduct.
The husband cannot either sell or devise his real estate, except subject
to this dower right of his wife. The husband's estate by courtesy in his
wife's real estate is by no means so broad or so well secured as is the
wife's right of dower. It does not attach at all until the birth of a
living child, and the wife may absolutely defeat it at any time without
any consent on the part of her husband, either by conveying her real
estate during her lifetime, or by devising it by her will. It is no longer
necessary for the husband to join with the wife in conveying her property.
A husband is liable for necessaries purchased by his wife, and also for
money given to the wife by a third person in order to enable her to
purchase necessaries, and he is bound to support her and her children
without regard to the extent of her individual and separate estate. No
similar obligation to furnish necessaries to a husband is imposed upon a
wife. The legal definition of necessaries is very broad, being "such
things as are actually required for the wife's support commensurate with
the husband's means, her wonted living as his spouse, and her station in
the community."
In case of a divorce, whether partial or absolute, obtained by the wife,
the husband is required to pay _alimony_ for her support during the rest
of her life, even if she should re-marry. A wife from whom a husband
obtains a divorce cannot be required to contribute in any way to his
support.
Although the law has opened wide the door for all women to engage in
business, it still discriminates in their favor in many particulars. No
woman can be arrested in a civil action, or held by an execution against
the body, except in cases in which it is shown that she has committed "a
wilful injury to person, character, or property," or has been guilty of
such an evasion of duty as is equivalent to a contempt of court. Thus a
woman engaged in business cannot be arrested in an action for a debt
fraudulently contracted.
All women judgment debtors, whether married or single, enjoy certain
exemptions from the sale of their property under execution, which, in the
case of men, extend only to a householder; that is, a man who has, and
provides for, a household or family.
Every married woman is the joint guardian of her children with her
husband, with equal powers, rights, and duties in regard to them with her
husband. It is only the survivor, be it father or mother, who possesses
the right to appoint a guardian by deed or by will. She has now equal
rights with the father over her children.
As matter of practice, the courts when called upon to award the custody of
minor children in cases of separation, determine the question with
reference solely to the interests of the child, with a strong leaning in
the mother's favor.
A husband's creditors have no claim upon the proceeds of a policy of
insurance upon his life for the benefit of his wife, unless the annual
premiums paid by him shall have exceeded five hundred dollars. The
proceeds of such a policy are exempt from execution for any debt owed by
the wife.
The statutes contain a large number of special provisions for the benefit
of female employees in factories and mercantile houses. In the city of New
York, if any man fails to pay the wages due a female employee up to fifty
dollars, not only is none of his property exempt from execution, but he is
liable to be imprisoned upon a body execution, and kept in close
confinement without the privilege of bail. A similar rule is applicable in
Brooklyn.
No woman can be called upon to perform military duty.
No woman can be required to serve upon any jury.
No woman can be called upon by the sheriff or any peace officer to assist
in quelling a disturbance or making an arrest.