Imperial Valley press. (El Centro, Calif.) 1907-current, 1913-12-30
Women Under English Law

Women Under English Law
Although the legal status of women
has been much improved in England,
the law still favors the stronger sex
at the expense of the weaker, says the
Queen. Apart from the question of
divorce there are other laws which
are unfair.
At one time the law did not receg
nize the wife as having any separate
civic existence. She was under cover
ture-that is to say, under the guard
ianship and control of her husband
and was not regarded as free agent.
The husband had absolute control over
her person, her children (after the age
of nature), her property and her
earnings, SO long as he did not i'll treat
her.
She could not dispose of any prop
erty or enter into any contract with
out his consent, and he could at any
time revoke her will if he chose. The
only way in which her property could
De protected was by a marriage set
Element, and such settlements were
not usual except in the rase of we'll
o do women.
There was no way of securing the
earnings of poor woman from a
ipendthrift or tyrannical husband,
md many cases of hardship occurred;
asses in which a woman time after
ime made little home for her chill
lren by her earnings and the husband
anne and sold everything to spend for
rink.
Today the wife who has separate
property or who is capable of earn
ng her own living is practically indie
pendent. She may dispose of her
money and other belongings if she
,leases and enter into any contract
without obtaining her husbands per-
mission. But if she has no source of
income beyond that her husband al
'ows her she is very much at the
mercy of his whim. He is not bound
make any allowance, either for her
personal use or for housekeeping ex-
)enses, however, hard she may toll
COR his benefit.
Not only can a husband keep his
wife extremely short of money during
his life, denying her, comforts for
which he can well afford to pay, but in
he absence of marriage settlement
he wife has no security that any pro-
vision will be made for her after her
husbands death, however wealthy he
nay be. Unless there is freehold
property, in which case she has GER
ain right to dover under an old act.
4 widow has no claim to any part of
Ter husbands estate if he chooses to
cave it all away from her, but she
Ind her children may be left absolute
y destitute.
Roman law recognized the inalien-
,ble right of wife to certain pro-
portion of her husbands property af-
ter his death, and this right is en-
eorced in Scotland and in almost every
ountry of the civilized world, includ
ing those countries where the Moham-
medan religion is practiced. New Zea-
land at first allowed the bad custom
If the mother country of leaving the
wife dependent on her husbands
:aprice, but since women obtained
the vote the law has been altered so
that a man cannot leave all his prop
erty away from his wife nor a parent
from his or her children.
In New Zealand too men and wo-
men are now equal with regard to the
aw of intestacy Here if the wife dies
without making a will her husband
takes all her property, but if the hus-
band dies intestate the wife in no case
yets more than half the property and
sometimes only third. If man has
no near relatives, but only widow,
half goes to the Crown. 1t certainly
cannot be said that English law favors
the widow.