XIV

ARGUMENTS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE REFUTED

(Continued)

Tis said that "the property rights of women

IT is

would be better protected if they had the power

to vote." Instead of this it should be said that the property rights of women in most of the states are protected as well now as they would be if women were actually engaged in politics.

On that proposition I submit as evidence, first, an incident communicated to me by the principal personage connected with it. A lady of rare intelligence, being engaged in arguing in favour of the suffrage for women, said that it was proposed to pave the street on which she lived, contrary to the wishes of the property holders, most of whom were widows and single women. She attributed the scheme to recklessness on the part of certain men, most of whom paid no taxes, and declared with vigour that had she and her "women friends been able to vote, no such thing would have been attempted."

When I asked concerning the outcome, the response was that she and " a few other interested women went to the leaders of each party, some of

whom had previously advocated the scheme, and easily persuaded them to defeat the proposition."

She did not appear to perceive that had she been a voter her influence would have been confined chiefly, if not wholly, to members of her own political party.

Direct proof that woman's property and person are, to say the least, as well protected as man's is at hand, as is seen by the following:

June 14, 1898, Senator Wadleigh, who was a member of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, made a report to the United States Senate concerning a proposed constitutional amendment forbidding the United States or any state to deny or abridge the right to vote on account of sex. In that report was the following:

"The adoption of this amendment would make several millions of female voters totally inexperienced in political affairs quite generally dependent on the other sex; all incapable of performing military duty and without the power to enforce the laws which their numerical strength may enable them to make; and comparatively few of whom wish to assume the irksome, responsible political duties which this measure thrust upon them."

The committee added that "without female suffrage, legislation has constantly been improving the condition of woman. The disabilities imposed upon her by the common law have one by one been swept

away, until in most of the states she has the full right to her property, and all, or nearly all, the rights which can be granted without impairing or destroying the marriage relation. Nor can women justly complain of any partiality in the administration of justice. They have the sympathy of judges and particularly of juries to an extent which would warrant loud complaint on the part of their adversaries of the Their appeals to legislators against injustice are never unheeded."

sterner sex.

So far as the protection of property, etc., is in question, the testimony of Senator Hoar is, "The admission of married women to control their own property which has come to pass within a generation is due to the lawmaking sex, and I think there was quite as much hesitation and opposition to it on the part of women as on the part of men. Miss Alice Stone Blackwell said (in my hearing the other day that 'the various successive changes which have taken place in regard to persons and property, and the educational and professional liberties of woman during the last fifty [now sixty-four] years were made before a majority of the women asked for them, and even in spite of the disapproval of the majority of women.'"'

If the foregoing be not satisfactory proof that woman's property is protected as well as, if not better than it would be if she entered politics, one may consider the

immunities and legal privileges which, by most of the states of the Union, have been granted to women, but not conferred upon men. With the aid of one of the ablest and most erudite lawyers in the city of New York, whose legal works are read and used as text-books on both sides of the Atlantic, I find the following laws guaranteeing the protection given to woman in the state of New York with respect to her property, real and personal. The references deal chiefly with the wife, who is represented by some extreme suffragists to be a slave, owned in mind, body and estate by her husband. Unmarried women, including widows, are practically in property protection under laws similar to those made for men.

This examination of the laws of the state of New York with reference to women gives a fairly accurate conception of the protection extended to them generally throughout the United States. The object is not to give all the laws relating to the subject, but the most pertinent and important.

Dower Rights. A widow is entitled to one-third of the income of the real estate of which her husband died possessed or of which he was the absolute owner at any time subsequent to their marriage, even though he parted with the ownership immediately after he acquired it. Her dower right attaches to the land the instant that it becomes her husband's. It is not conditioned upon the birth of children and can

not be taken away or controlled by any acts of the husband.

Courtesy, or the right of a husband to share in the estate of his deceased wife, is conditioned upon the birth of a living child and may be cut off by the wife by deed (since 1862) or by her will (since 1867) without the husband's consent.

Descent of Land. Since 1813 or earlier, where a person possessed of property dies without leaving a will, all of the decedent's children, male and female, share and share alike. If there are no descendants the father takes (and if there is no father, the mother) before brothers and sisters. This is in direct opposition to the English law, which gives preference to the eldest male child to the exclusion of all other children.

The Property of the Wife. A wife's property since 1848 and her business earnings since 1860 are in her exclusive control. From 1860 to 1896 she was liable as her husband's agent for supplies for herself and family but that liability has been removed, and her estate is not now liable even for her own funeral expenses.

The Wife's Contracts. Since 1848 she has been able to contract without the joinder of her husbandand to bind her property as she chooses, and to convey her property to her husband since 1880 and to make contracts with him since 1892.