Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for ReformBesant, Annie
Philosophy
Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for Reform
Besant, Annie
Marriage -- Great Britain; Marriage law -- Great Britain
243,
244). Yet even a child, in the eye of the law, has property, and if
his clothes are stolen, it is safer to allege them to be the child's
property. The main principle of English law remains unaltered by recent
legislation, that "a married woman has no property." Married women
share incapacity to manage property with minors and lunatics; minors,
lunatics, and married women are taken care of by trustees; minors become
of age, lunatics often recover, married women remain incapable during
the whole of their married life.
Being incapable of holding property, a married woman is of course,
incapable of making a will. Here, also, the Common Law may be
checkmated. She may make a will "by virtue of a power reserved to her,
or of a marriage settlement, or with her husband's assent, or it may be
made by her to carry her separate estate; and the court in determining
whether or not such will is entitled to probate, will not go minutely
into the question, but will only require that the testatrix had a power
reserved to her, or was entitled to separate estate, and will, if so
satisfied, grant probate to her executor, leaving it to the Court of
Chancery, as the court of construction, to say what portion of her
estate, if any, will pass under such will. In this case the husband,
though he may not be entitled to take probate of his wife's will, may
administer to such of her effects as do not pass under the will" ("Comm,
on the Laws of England," Broom and Hadley, vol. iii., pp. 427, 428).
Thus we see that a husband may will away from his wife her own original
property, but a wife may not even will away her own, unless the right
be specially reserved to her before marriage. And yet it is urged that
women have no need of votes, their interests being so well looked after
by their fathers, husbands, and brothers!
We have thus seen that the "rights of every Englishman" are destroyed
in women by marriage; one would imagine that matrimony was a crime for
which a woman deserved punishment, and that confiscation and outlawry
were the fit rewards of her misdeed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account