Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1911-08-18
SHALL WOMEN STUDY AND PRAC-
TICE LAW.


TICE LAW
have waited until the legislature is
about to adjourn, and the effort to give
women an equal chance to earn living
In Georgia has failed before / entered
into the discussion of this question.
1t smacks loudly of the old idea that
women are the chattles which can be
controlled IL not sold by their masters;
for 1t will not be forgotten that laws
before the war were found on the statute
books of Georgia to allow a man to
whip his wife provided he used hick-
DRY withe, not longer than his thumb.
If the butt of the whip was as large as
his wrist he could be hailed into court
and perhaps reprimanded but so long as
the hickory withe was not larger than
his thumb he could whip her as often
as he thought she needed correction, and
the majority of the women who were
thus castigated were so proud minded
that they took the rod, TO save dis
grace to their children. If she left the
brute, then she was called a grass
widow" with the stigma that brutal men
could attach thereto at their leisure.
When a woman at that time entered in
to wedlock she should have known that
she had no more civil liberty than the
slave woman that her father gave her
to help her nurse her children. Except
| that she could not be sold ION the
block" like the slave woman, she was
in as much actual bondage to her master.
as her colored bondswoman
| 1t was unlikely that the women were
permitted to read any law on this SUBJ
ject, and while there were many @and
honorable exceptions to the rule, yet the
average husband took great satisfaction
out of his liberty to hold the woman
down into the valley of the shadow to-
in society. He could quote st. Paul at
breakfast, dinner and supper, and smack
his lips over the command.
But he was none too good" to sell the
woman's property, or sign 1t away on
security debts, or squander 1t, on him
self and his vanities and l may add his
lusts and debaucheries.
He didn't want his wife to know any
thing about law-not he. Ignorance is
the helpmeet for tyranny, and the igno-
rant white women of Georgia were under
that infamous whipping law as late as
the year 1857.
| She couldn't own her own land or
houses or clothes or furniture until after
the war.
1 doubt very much if she would have
been given the liberty to own what
rightfully was her own until 1t was dis
covered that men might dodge their
creditors by hiding behind the woman's
skirts, and they could gallop abroad.
head up, and tail over the dashboard
when they felt assured that womankind
couldn't resist their authority, no mat
ter how the law hedged these women
around, to protect the helpless and de-
fenseless offspring of the family.
1t was the mans privilege to make the
laws and the woman's fate to obey them
and today the effort is made and car
ried out to prevent women from under
standing the laws which pertain to their
property and their lives
She has only second claim on her own
children. The father is made the right
full owner of the child that she went
down into the valley of the shadow to
| bring into being. otr
The tyrant expects to make her obedi-
ent through the mothers love for her of
| spring. The less she knows of her legal
rights the better the tyrant is pleased.
If she studied law she might be tempt
ed to appeal to law for simple justice.
If she practiced law she might make
or shake up the sleeping rights Of WIFE
hood and motherhood, and upset some
of the present plans and purposes with
domestic tyrants.
So 1t was left to a Georgia legisla-
ture to say that no woman in Georgia
should practice law. She must emigrate
to a more chivalric state to be able
to do so. Nearly all the states in the
union have bestowed this manifest right.
But Georgia is so far in the rear that
men had the audacity to rise on the
floor of the house and call their oppo-
| sition Georgia chivalry" In their opin-
ion the bar has reached a place where
| is is either too nasty for decent wo-
man to appear, or the men are determin-
ed to prevent women understanding
their rights under these men-made stat
utes.
Take the nasty horn or the knavery
horn, don't care which.