Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1914-05-15
THE VALUE OF A WIFE.

! Iowa women, though they have not
yet attained the ballot. can draw some
consolation from a decision rendered
! by the state supreme court this week
which hid that in cases where the
woman has a vocation by which she is
capable of supporting herself damages
may be collected by the husband for
the death or injury to his wife by the
negligence of third party.
/ The decision was given in the Nolte
case, appealed from Muscatine. The
wife, who was killed in an accident on
the Rock Island road, was a trained
nurse. Death took place within a
year after marriage. The district court
gave a verdict of $500, which was
cut down by the supreme court to
| 81 900.
| In giving the decision Justice Weav-
er referred to the fact that the Iowa
law had, as to married women, so far
removed their legal disabilities as to
permit them to engage in independent
occupations and to have and control
their own earnings with the same
freedom and to the same extent as If
unmarried; =" but also under the pre-
vailing rule "a married woman was
still so far subject 10 her common law
disabilities that if she had no indie
pendent business or occupation no ac-
ton would lie in favor of her admin
istrator for injury to her estate be-
cause of her death by the negligence
of another person" This was on the
theory that as a mere housewife or
homekeeper her services belong to
her husband.
Ii was sought, by the attorneys for
the railroad company, TO have the rule
laid down that the husbands consent
to the independent occupation or bust
ness of his wife must be established
before court or jury can properly con-
slider her earning capacity. The court
does not agree to this. for to attach
such condition by judicial pronounce
ment would be to take from the
statute all its force and power as a
protection to married women and en-
able an idle, profligate or misery hus-
band TO make use of the authority so
given him to coerce his wife into a
surrender or division of her earnings"
Continuing the court said:
while these things indicate a wide
departure from the ideas embodied in
the common law conception of the
married relation and its effect upon
the status and rights of women it is
not for this court to interpose a bar
rier TO the march of legislative prog
ress or to rob the statute of its nat
ural force and effect by overnice con-
struction. AS a proposition of morals
and abstract justice uninhuenced by
mere precedent and prejudice, there
is nothing inherently startling or re-
pulsive in the conception of marriage
as a union of equals which implies
neither the effacement or subjugation |
CT either party to the contract 1t
ought not to be impossible for wife /
10 be felpmeet to her husband with |
out becoming his bondservant. So !
long as the wife remains a woman of \
normal quality the fear expressed by /
that the recognition of these |
principles will lead her to desert |
her husbands home to go out and |
earn her own living and keep the pro-
ceeds' may safely be dismissed, for II |
observation be worth any
thing the wife who possesses an in
dependent occupation has never been
less ready than her spouse to devote
ler separate estate to the support and
comfort of the family and home. While
we have no statistics upon the subject
we feel justified in saying that the
granting to married women of equal
lights in matters of property and
business and the rapid extension of
heir activities in all lines OF employ
nent have occasioned no visible re-
luction in the number OF men willing
o cast an anchor to windward by
marrying thrifty milliners, stenogra-
,hers and washerwomen."