Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost AdvocatesJohnson, Helen Kendrick
History
Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates
Johnson, Helen Kendrick
Women -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
Legal equality would set the boy and the girl on the same level at once.
The law of equality could know no such thing as "exemption" for the
unmarried woman, or "dower right" or "maintenance" for the married woman
that would not be equally binding on both husband and wife. In Germany,
rich American women are maintaining their land-poor husbands under legal
stress, "in the style to which they have been accustomed," because the law
of Germany is "equal" in respect to property maintenance of husband and
wife. In Ohio, where Suffrage agitation has been persistent, the
legislature in 1894 passed an act "enabling a husband, as well as a wife,
to sue and obtain alimony pending divorce proceedings."
We began by talking of legal disabilities, and, led by the Suffragists
themselves, are already discussing legal immunities.
The editors of the "History" say: "The laws affecting woman's civil rights
have been greatly improved during the past thirty years, but the political
demand has made but questionable progress, though it must be counted as
the chief influence in modifying the laws. The selfishness of man was
readily enlisted in securing woman's civil rights, while the same element
in his character antagonized her demand for political equality." If it was
his selfishness that procured woman civil rights and privileges, was it
his unselfishness that formerly denied them? The fact that the States that
granted them first, and most fully, are the ones where Suffrage has made
least progress, suggests the injustice of the charge.
But a question of real interest is, must the political demand made by
women be counted as the chief influence in modifying the laws?
In 1836, Judge Hertell presented, in the New York Legislature, a bill to
secure property rights to married women, which had been drawn up under the
supervision of the Hon. John Savage, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
and the Hon. John C. Spencer, one of the revisers of the statutes. In its
behalf Ernestine Rose and Paulina Wright Davis circulated a petition, to
which they gained only five signatures among their own sex.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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