Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1852-11-04
For the Freeman.
Woman's Property Rights.

Existing property laws, as they affect the in
forests and happiness of married women, are
Just cause of complaint amorg themselves, and
equally opposed to the true interests of all who
have claims on them for support or training.
They are open to criticlsm-Ist, because they
divest women ofjuSt rights in property and I'd,
because they have so guarded released property
rights that they are not available for such appli-
cation and use as the interest and happiness Of
the holders demand.
The holding of property is ranked by our re-
publican Gogernments among inalenable rights,
and the reason for so ranking it, is to be found
in the necessities and responsibilities Of the
Human being, which absorb the entire means
created by average energies in their proper
and honorable discharge.
In the marriage relation, as proved by actual
life, the responsibilities of the parties are equal,
t54 sn%L55 and if the father prove rec
80 ~a- s'e support and training
crow !sa,eG heatrralIy devove upon the moth
ef' publishing beyond question, her equal
eight to hold and control means
Not only does justice demand that this right
be conceded to her, but the best interests of So
ciety require it. For by releasing to the respon
able mother means for the support and proper
education of her children, the community will
most effactually protect itself against the pau
perism which taxes its purse. and the crime
which ieopards its safety, through the husbands
and fathers who use their property rights to feed
their brutal appetites, sending their families to
the poor houses and prisons.
The legislation of the past declares that the
strong man needs not only his own property and
earning, but that of his wife and minor children
also, 10 meet the physical and educational de-
mands of the family it is left for the legislation
of a better age-God grant it be the present
TO declare thatwith an equal responsibility phys
ically weaker woman should have control of her
DUN property and earnings.
The legislators of the past, acting upon the
supposon that all husbands have the wit and
the will to support their wives and children, gave
of their wives and children. The Legislators OF
the present, will prove their couImon sense and
humanity by abandoning this legal fiction,
and acting upon the reality that many men have
proved themselves unable or unwilling, with all
these aids to support their families in comfort
while women not a teW, have supported their
children and trained them for useful life with
only her OWn earnings that many man in spite
of the legal injection into his veins of his wifes
means Of subsistence, has proved dead to all the
claims of famiIy while many wife, though
"pEAD IN LAW has managed under the para.
yzng conditions Of her league catalepsy o be a
fountain of life 10 her children, and through
them to the community.
The necessities and responsibilities of men
and single women. is the basis on which repub-
lican Governments have secured to them inde'
pendent property rights 1t is not pretended
that marriage deprives woman, Of her necessities
they are inherent in her nature-but it trebles
her responsibilities and proportionally increases
her necessity for property and all its advan'
tages,
The laws should protect to married women
their property. They have equally with man
inherent personal nece ,sities, and should not be
forced by laws alternating their property rights,
to choose between starvation or the poor house.
Laws protecting property to the married wo-
man will tend 10 ameorate her condition as a
widow. The laws Of the State secure to its
widows only the use Of one-tbird the real estate
even though it be triae too small to save help.
less age from charity or the poor house. The
husband can viii away from his wife all the per-
sona property, and in small estates it takes it all
to pay the expenses of settlement. Property
held in her own right may gave the widow from
the poor house.
Another benefit which will result from secu-
ring 10 married women their property, real, per-
sonal and mixed, and its use--is the equalization
of property it will be more equally and justly
distributed IN the settlements Of estates, the
children of the mother herring from her what
herself heirs from her parents or had acquired
by her own labor. And again, it would benefit
the husband by bene6ting the famiIy,of the wife.
Ii .bo;r Jouohforc thnU do