CONCLUSION.
[Sidenote: Common law in Iowa.]
[Sidenote: Unmarried women. Property rights.]
[Sidenote: Married women.]
[Sidenote: Law will not protect them.]
The rules of the common law have never prevailed in all their harshness
in Iowa. At the time when the young state was born, public sentiment
already demanded a code more just, and, as before noted, the first law
for the protection or extension of the property rights of married women,
was passed in 1846. Modifications and changes have followed each other
through the entire history of our state legislation, until our present
law approaches a condition so nearly one of equal and exact justice
between the sexes, that it might serve as a model for other states less
progressive than our own. Except in the way of political disabilities
our law makes no discrimination against or in favor of women. They have
all the rights and privileges enjoyed by men, and are subject to the
same duties and responsibilities. Before the law they are equal, but, as
a matter of fact, where the law does not interfere, how is it in regard
to the property rights of the wife? The unmarried woman has control of
her property, if she has any, to the same extent that an unmarried man
has control of his. If she accumulates money or property by an
expenditure of her time and labor, it belongs to her alone. She can keep
it, give it away, will it, spend it, enjoy it, with the same
unquestioned right and freedom enjoyed by her brother. But a married
woman possesses no such independence, notwithstanding the laws in her
favor. The circumstances of her life may be such, that the law will be
powerless to protect her in the enjoyment of property which by right
belongs to her. The relations and respective duties of husband and wife
are such that the husband usually and necessarily controls the business
and the family income. The amount of that income over and above the
expenditures for family expenses, he invests as he chooses. If it is his
will to invest it in real estate, the law says she may have a share of
it after his death. If he deposits it in a bank or purchases stocks,
bonds, mortgages, or other personal property, the law again says part of
it shall be hers, if she survives him, and he has not disposed of it
while living, as he has a legal right to do. In either case, she cannot
control a single dollar during the life of her husband, if he chooses to
deprive her of that privilege. The property accumulated during the
marriage may be acquired by the wise judgment, strict economy and
self-denial of the wife in connection with the time and labor of the
husband. It may even be obtained wholly by her efforts, even though not
arising from the profits of any "separate business" recognized by the
law. Her contribution to the family income may, and generally does, come
into the possession of the husband and he invests it in property to
which he naturally and as a matter of course takes the title. During his
life he controls it. After his death one-third will belong to the wife,
if there are children. If there are no children one-half will go to his
heirs no matter how distant the relationship may be.
[Sidenote: Law may result in hardship and suffering.]
In cases where the joint accumulations of husband and wife are only
sufficient to support the wife in comfort after the death of her
husband, the law of descent as it now stands, may result in positive
hardship and suffering. No matter how small the amount of property
belonging to a deceased husband may be, one-half of it will descend to
his heirs, if he has no children, and the wife be left with no means of
support. Of course the result would be the same in the case of the
husband upon the death of the wife, if she held the title to all of the
common property. That this law of descent has not operated to the
disadvantage of the husband, but invariably to the disadvantage of the
wife, is not due to any defect in either the letter or spirit of the
existing law, but is the natural and inevitable result of the custom
which gives the husband the title to and the control of the joint
earnings of himself and wife.
[Sidenote: Change or modification needed.]
It is difficult to suggest a remedy or to conceive of any law which
would adjust and equalize the relations of husband and wife in the
ownership and control of common property during the lifetime of both,
but if some just and wise legislator can devise some change or
modification of the present law, which will not interfere with the
husband's proper and necessary position as breadwinner and manager of
the business of the family partnership, and which will give to the wife
control of a portion of the family income while the husband lives, and
when the total amount of property held by either, is only sufficient to
afford a comfortable support to the other, will after the death of the
owner of the property, secure it all to husband or wife, as the case may
be, he will add to the laws of the state the one requisite necessary to
secure to women equal property rights with men, and a more just
distribution of intestate property.