The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1873-08-21
The Law of a Wife's Property.
BY GAIL HAMILTON.

the blame on some one there is an i'm
mediate sense of relief. II hardship, can
be traced to an unj just law, it is no smal
satisfaction to pound away upon the enorm
ity OF the existing law, and to work for it,
repeal. Yet it is forever and forever true
that individual suffering can never be
prevented by general laws. We may
frame them into code as just and wide
as the human mind can compass, aud still
men and women will be happy aud miser.
able according to their own private tenn
perament, sagacity and character This
should not prevent us from improving
laws wherever improvement is needed,
but it should prevent US from expecting
and we should also remember that, though
one person suffers under the law aud be
cause of the law, its repeal or modifica
tion may work equal suffering on another
person. Remembering all this, let US
glance at the laws of property, as they re
late to domestic relations.
Statute law, in some of the States at
least, gives to the husband right of
dover in his wife's estate. She dies,
| DIOpCItJ ICdl SStdtC
from her father, and in no manner ac-
quired from her husband But he thoug h
he cannot sell this property, controls its
entire income as long as he lives. The
children have no claim upon it whatever
during their fathers life, and no benefit
from it except through his will and pleas
ure. He may be an affectionate father,
but an inefficient man, and may let their
wealth dwindle into insignicance through
sheer incapacity or Incidence, and though
his daughter grow up and marry au en-
ergetic business man, who could rehabili
tate her possessions and establish a for.
tune, he can not touch them unless the
father gives consent. The father may
marry again domineering, niggardly and
narrow minded woman, who boards in her
own name the income of the property Of
her step children, who has not foresight
enough to see that certain expenditure
on that property is necessary to keep it
from deterioration. BY this law, there
fore, the children are absolutely deprived
of any right or control over their own IN
heritance during their fathers life. They
are no better of than if nothing had been
left them.
OF jnint property the laws are different
in different States. In some, men are
favored /; in one or two, perhaps, women.
L think the most common custom is for
the man to inherit the whole income Of
his wife's estate during life, and to be un
der obligation to support the children
The wife inherits by law one half, or less,
of the personal property, aud the income
of one third OF the real estate during life.
The personal property she may dispose
of, but the real estate is inalenable, and
reverts to the children after her Jeath.-
The man may make WILL but if he does
not leave his wife her "thirds," she can
break the will. The wifes will is not
valid without the consent.o her husband.
No act Of hers can deprive him of his
right of drower in her real estate, his life
income from her property. lie is in
alienably "tenant by courtesy" as the law
giugery puts it. One corrective the law
supplies-that a certain degree Of incapa.
city or neglect in the father makes it pos
sible for both himself and his children to
be placed under guardianship. The in
equality of footing on which men and wo-
men are placed by the action of these
laws is not SO great as is often supposed
He is required to support her children,
while his children are not legally thrown
upon her, but have separate provisions
made for them. Nor is this, as it might
at first seem, because fathers love is as
sumed to be stronger than a mothers
1t is-at least, out of respect to the heads
of law makers, let us assume that it is
because the father is supposed to have a
better business capacity, "A better under
standing of the investment of money,
than has the mother. The children eau
just as safely be trusted to her love but
as she is not generally the business man
ager during her husbands life, il is sup
posed that she is relieved by having the
children's property relega;ed to another
guardian than herself
The evil of this is that the family bond
is weakened, the dependence of children
upon their mother lessened, aud, in some
cases, her life narrowed. When there
are minor children it is far better that
the family should be kept together, and
that the mothers influence should be
strengthened by her being really as well
as nominally the head of the family. She
should have not only moral but real pow
er. The authority that formerly rested
in father and mother should now centre
in her. The appropriating power of par
liaments is a great check on sovereigns.
1t is good for boys to know that their
mother holds the purse.
If the children are grown up men and
women at their fathers death, it is cruie
thing for them to take the property away
from their mother. 1t is by moral r'sht
hers as much as her husbands one mas
worked as hard as he. Her prudence pa,
tience, industry, sagacity have contfiouted
as much as is to the family fortunes Her
suffcrings, privatons, sell sacrifices nave
b!po thot his \