“ Sometimes they do not inherit, but transmit a right of inheritance to their male issue. Sometimes they succeed to one kind of property, for the most part movable property, which they probably look a great share in producing by their household labour; for example, in the real Salic law (not in the imaginary code) there is a set of rules of succession which, in my opinion, clearly admit women and their descendants to a share in the inheritance of movable property, but confine land exclusively to males and the descendants of males. ”

“ Chastisement of a wife by a husband, possibly at one time lawful to a reasonable extent, would now certainly constitute an assault. The husband's rights are limited to restraining the wife's liberty in case of her misconduct.
In Scotland the criminal law differs slightly from that of England. At one time drowning was a punishment specially reserved for women. Incest (q.v.) , or an attempt to commit incest, has always been punishable as a crime. Adultery and fornication are still nominally crimes, but criminal proceedings in these cases have fallen into desuetude. ”

“ In the Mosaic law divorce was a privilege of the husband only, [2] the vow of a woman might be disallowed by her father or husband, [3] and daughters could inherit only in the absence of sons, and then they must marry in their tribe. [4] The guilt or innocence of a wife accused of adultery might be tried by the ordeal of the bitter water. [5] Besides these instances, which illustrate the subordination of women, there was much legislation dealing with, inter alia, offences against chastity, and marriage of a man with a captive heathen woman or with a purchased slave. ”

“ In succession ab intestato to immovable property Roman law did not, as does English, recognize any privilege of males over females.
Legal disabilities were gradually mitigated by the influence of fictions, the praetorian equity and legislation. An example of the first was the mode by which a woman freed herself from the authority of her tutor by fictitious cession into the authority of a tutor nominated by herself, or by sale of herself into the power of a nominal husband on the understanding that he was at once to emancipate her to another person, who then manumitted her. ”

“ The criminal law in its relation to women presents some points of interest. Adultery was punished with death by Constantine, but the penalty was reduced by Justinian to relegation to a convent. A woman condemned for adultery could not re-marry. A marriage between a Christian and a Jew rendered the parties guilty of adultery. Severe laws were enacted against offences of unchastity, especially procurement and incest. It was a capital crime to carry off or offer violence to a nun. A wife could not commit furtum of her husband's goods, but he had a special action rerum amotarum against her. ”

“ Adultery is no crime, England being almost the only country where such is the case. It was punished by fine in the ecclesiastical courts up to the 17th century, and was made criminal for a short time by an ordinance of the Long Parliament. The offences which can be committed only against women are chiefly those against decency, such as rape, procurement and similar crimes, in which a considerable change in the law in the direction of increased protection to women was made by the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. ”

“ Women have also been nominated as members of Royal Commissions (e.g. those on the Poor Law and Divorce) . A woman cannot serve on a jury, but may, if married, be one of a “jury of matrons” empanelled to determine the condition of a female prisoner on a writ de venire inspiciendo. She can vote (if unmarried or a widow) in county council, municipal, poor law and other local elections. The granting of the parliamentary franchise to women was, however, still withheld in 1910. The history of the movement for women's suffrage is told below. ”

“ The result was that, in spite of a few remaining disabilities, such as the general incapacity to be surety or witness to a will or contract, of a wife to make a gift to her husband, of a widow to marry within a year of her husband's death, the position of women had become, in the words of Sir H. Maine, “one of great personal and proprietary independence.” [13] For this improvement in their position they were largely indebted to the legislation of the Christian emperors, especially of Justinian, who prided himself on being a protector of women. ”

“ The idea is that the proper mode of providing for a woman is by giving her a marriage portion; but, when she is once married into a separate community consisting of strangers in blood, neither she nor her children are deemed to have any further claim on the parent group.” Among the Scandinavian races women were under perpetual tutelage, whether married or unmarried. ”

“ They form an important (and in America, the predominating) section of the teaching profession in the state schools, and in all research work play an increasingly valuable part. It is not possible for every woman to be a scholar, a doctor (see below) , a lawyer, [26] or possibly to attain the highest position in professions where competition with men is keen, but the development of women's work has opened many other outlets for their energies. ”

“ The legal rights of a married woman apart from contract were gradually limited, until by the time of Glanvill her person and property had become during her husband's lifetime entirely at his disposal, and after his death limited to her dower and her pars rationabilis.
A few of the more interesting matters in which the old common and statute law of England placed women in a special position may be noticed. A woman was exempt from legal duties more particularly attaching to men and not performable by deputy. ”

“ And increasing provision has been made, in the arts and crafts, for the furtherance of their careers. There are successful women architects now working in England, and in 1905 a woman won the silver medal of the Royal Society of British Architects; a large number of women travel for business firms; in decorative work, as silversmiths, dentists, law copyists, proof-readers, and in plan tracing women work with success; wood-carving has become almost as recognized a career for them as that of typewriting and shorthand, in which an increasing number are finding employment. ”

“ In France the movement towards democracy did not in the hands of Rousseau include the enfranchisement of women, and Comte taught that women were politically inferior to men; Condorcet, however, demanded equal rights for both sexes. Although, through an oversight, women could vote under the first constitution of New Jersey from 1776 to 1807, there is no doubt that women's suffrage had made practically no progress in any country till comparatively late in the 19th century. ”

“ A married woman having separate property is, under the Married Women's Property Acts 1882 and 1908, liable for the support of her parents, husband, children and grandchildren becoming chargeable to any union or parish. At common law the father was entitled as against the mother to the custody of a legitimate child up to the age of sixteen, and could only forfeit such right by misconduct. ”

“ Though Christianity and a broadening of men's theories of life tended to raise the moral and social status of women, yet Paul definitely assigns subservience as the proper function of women, and many of the fathers looked upon them mainly as inheriting the temptress function of Eve. This view generally obtained throughout the middle ages, though here and there glimmerings of a new idea are seen; many of the great English abbesses discharged their territorial duties as landowners, and women as custodians of castles voted for knights of the shire. ”

“ Before the accession of Queen Victoria, there was no systematic education for English women, but as the first half of the 19th century drew to a close, broader views began to be held on the subject, while the humanitarian movement, as well as the rapidly increasing number of women, helped to put their education on a sounder basis. ”

“ To deal in detail with this movement in various countries would here be too intricate a matter; but in the English-speaking countries at all events the change is so complete that the only curious thing now is, not what spheres women may not enter, more or less equally with men, but the few from which they are still excluded. ”

“ In the act of 1908 establishing the new Roman Catholic university in Ireland, it was provided that two members of the senate should be women; and Queen's University, Belfast, had three women in 1910 in its senate. Women may point with justifiable pride to the fact that within a very few years of their admission to university examinations, they provided at Cambridge both a senior classic and a senior wrangler. ”

“ The action of equity is illustrated by the recognition by the praetor of cognatic or natural as distinguished from agnatic or artificial relationship, and of a widow's claim to succeed on the death of her husband intestate and without relations. Legislation, beginning as early as the Twelve Tables, which forbade excessive mourning for the dead by female mourners, did not progress uniformly towards enfranchisement of women. ”

“ In Finland and Norway women have long practised as barristers, and in Denmark since 1908 they have been admitted as assistants to lawyers. By the law of the Netherlands they are admitted as notaries. In England a special tribunal of the House of Lords presided over by the Lord Chancellor decided in 1903 not to admit women to the English bar, on the grounds that there was no precedent and that they were not desirous of creating one; but numbers of women take degrees in law in British universities, and several have become solicitors. ”

“ It may be remarked that, with or without the possession of a vote on their own account, politics in England have in modern times been very considerably influenced by the work of women as speakers, canvassers and organizers. ”

“ The whole idea of women's position in social life, and their ability to take their place, independently of any question of Higher education and its results. sex, in the work of the world, was radically changed in the English-speaking countries, and also in the more progressive nations beyond their bounds, during the 19th century. This is due primarily to the movement for women's higher education and its results. ”

“ From their teaching came the final stage which gave women the same academic advantages as men. Somerville College and Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford, Girton and Newnham Colleges at Cambridge, Westfield College in London, St Hilda's College, St Hugh's Hall, Holloway College, Owens College, the Manchester and Birmingham and Victoria Universities, and other colleges for women in all parts of the United Kingdom, are some of the later but equally successful results of the movement. The necessity for testing the quality of the education of women, however, soon began to be felt. ”

“ In 1908 the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons decided to admit women to their diplomas and fellowships. In the meantime women doctors had become a common phenomenon.
Women in England may fill some of the highest positions in the state. A woman may be a queen, or a regent, and as queen Political position. ”

“ In Great Britain the struggle to obtain admission to the teaching schools and to the examinations for medical degrees and diplomas was long and bitter. Though the Society of the Apothecaries admitted Mrs Garrett Anderson (q.v.) to their diploma in 1865, it was only after a series of rebuffs and failures that women were admitted to the degree examinations of the various universities. In August 1876 an “enabling” act was passed, empowering the nineteen British medical examining bodies to confer their degrees or diplomas without distinction of sex. ”

“ In Sweden a suffrage bill was carried in the lower but rejected in the upper house in 1909. In all the chief countries there are suffrage societies of greater or less strength. In Russia the question was placed in the forefront of the demands made by the Duma in 1906, and in 1907 propertied women received the right to confer votes on their sons who would otherwise be unenfranchised. In France a feminist congress met at Lyons in 1909.
The International Woman Suffrage Alliance originated in the United States in 1888. ”

“ Baptism might be valid although administered by a woman. Women who had professed religion could not be forced to give evidence as witnesses. In some cases the evidence of women was not receivable. [17]
The early law of the northern parts of Europe is interesting from the different ways in which it treated women. In the words of Sir H. Maine [18] —“The position of women in these barbarous systems of inheritance varies very greatly. Sometimes they inherit, either as individuals or as classes, only when males of the same generation have failed. ”

“ The rule of inheritance was agnatic, that is, descent traced through males to the exclusion of females. [7] The gradual growth of stridhana, or property of a woman given by the husband before or after marriage, or by the wife's family, may have led to the suttee, for both the family of the widow and the Brahmans had an interest in getting the life estate of a woman out of the way. [8] Women in Hindu law had only limited rights of inheritance, and were disqualified as witnesses.
In Roman law a woman was even in historic times completely dependent. ”