Women's property rights

“ We already have a property law, which in its legitimate effects must elevate the femme covert into a living, breathing woman, a wife into a property-holder, who can make contracts, buy and sell. In a few years we shall see how well it works. It needs but little forethought to perceive that in due time these large property-holders must be represented in the Government; and when the mass of women see that there is some hope of becoming voters and law-makers, they will take to their rights as naturally as the negro to his heels when he is sure of success. ”

“ Protecting women’s property rights. The state protects women’s property and inheritance rights, and the rights to know about and dispose of community property on an equal basis in the family. Rural women are guaranteed equal rights to land contract and management, to the use of rural residential land, and other real estate, and to a share in the collective income of their villages and compensation for land expropriation and resettlement. ”

“ In 1892, '93, '95 and '98 the laws were improved in regard to married women's property rights, allowing them to hold real estate independently of their husbands, restraining husbands from collecting debts or wages owing to their wives, and making the wife's signature necessary to the legality of mortgage. ”

“ For my life, I cannot see why there should be any distinction between men and women, when we speak of rights under government. A woman's rights are identical with a man's. Where he is limited, she should be; where she is limited, he should be."
In Rhode Island, the civil existence of the husband and wife is but one; and, though the letter of the law considers her property acquired by trade or inheritance as technically her own, still it is no longer under her single control. If, as a wife, she sells merchandise, the buyer becomes a debtor to her husband and herself. ”

“ Previous to this time all the property which a woman owned at marriage and all she might receive by gift or inheritance passed into the possession of the husband; the rents and profits belonged to him, and he could sell it during his lifetime or dispose of it by will at his death except her life interest in one-third of the real estate. The more thoughtful among women were beginning to ask why other unjust laws should not also be repealed, and the whole question of the rights of woman was thus opened. ”

“ The agitation for women's rights commenced in that State, and now its laws give not only as many but more advantages to women than to men. For in that State, the wife has unlimited control of her own property, independently of her husband, while by law he must support her and her children. What is his is hers, but what is hers is not his. She may be rich and the husband poor, and yet he must pay all her debts. ”

“ I have heard an old Illinois lawyer describe the early efforts to secure equal property rights for women in that State and the constant objection that such laws would destroy the family, that there could be no harmony unless the ownership were all in one person and that person the man. It was feared then, as now, that women would become tyrannical and unbearable if they were allowed too much independence. Do children suffer because their mothers own property? ”

“ If these rights were based on property, the failure to exercise them on the part of women did not show necessarily a disregard for their property rights, but that their interests were represented by the male members of the family whom they, in all probability, felt confident would guard their interests as well as they themselves could, or, perhaps better, since their knowledge of affairs outside of the household was of broader scope and their judgment based on business-world experience. ”

“ In many of the States where the statutes were based on the old English common law, the husband absorbed the wife's property as he absorbed her personal rights. Then came the demand for property rights for wives, but the cry went up they will desert their homes. Then it was found there were thousands of women who could have no home if they were not permitted to pursue avocations in the outside world. And then it was said that the moral life of women would be degraded by public contact. ”

“ All laws governing property naturally applied to women and aimed alone at protecting the rights of men. Transgression against these matrimonial rights of a man was an offense against property and punished accordingly. It was not an offense against the moral sense of the community, or of the individual, for wife-loaning was looked upon with favor by many while the usurpation of the same privilege was punishable by death. ”

“ These New York legislators, and the Western legislators who first granted property rights to married women, were actuated less by a sense of justice towards women than by enlightened selfishness. The effect of so much freedom on women themselves was a matter for grave conjecture. It was not suggested by any of the American debaters, as it was later on the floors of the English Parliament, that women, if they controlled their own property, would undoubtedly squander it on men whom they preferred to their husbands. ”

“ Throughout a wide range of rudimentary society women are treated as beasts of burden. When regarded industrially they are drudges or slaves. The most disagreeable work is all put upon them. They are therefore regarded as property, and are assimilated to property to such a degree that the rights which the men have in respect to women are logically developed from the notion of property in the wives. The right of property in this case, as in other primitive cases, rests upon force; a man has more wives than one just as he would have more slaves than one, if he could capture or keep them. ”

“ In most of the older States the property rights of married women are now fairly guaranteed, but the proud boast that in America no woman is the slave of her husband will have to be modified when it is known that in at least seventeen States these rights are still denied. ”

“ The first impulse toward the organization of women to protect their own rights came from the injustice of laws toward married women, and in 1848 it manifested itself in the first Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls. Slowly the leaven spread. There was agitation in one State after the other about the property rights of women.... Now in many States married as well as single women are proprietors of business enterprises upon the same basis as men, and are interested as capitalists and tax-payers in every law which affects the country industrially or financially. ”

“ Whatever rights women possessed as a class grew out of the rights of property. Just as soon as women held property in their own names we find them possessing powers in at least a degree which were attached to the land. “The German custom, which [Pg 104] in general was hostile to women, did not interfere in the matters of property and of heredity. The person having no existence proper in the society of that epoch, and social order being summed up in property alone, the claims of land were always weightier than the claims of person.” ”

“ The law not only did not protect women in their property rights, but did so much to prevent their getting or keeping them, that an able lawyer could not frame an instrument that would secure them even when signed by their intended husbands before marriage! This was more than thirty years ago, and some improvements have since been made in the laws in reference to women. ”

“ In the matter of procuring a more respectful consideration of the property rights of women, he was a pioneer. To attempt a detailed statement of the amelioration of those legal hardships under which women labored, is beyond the scope or purpose of this article. I will only mention, in brief, the more important provisions he was instrumental in passing in the face of ridicule and violent opposition. These amendments were: The abolition of simple dower, giving to widows instead, a fee simple interest; procuring for women the right to their own earnings ”

“ But in no direction have greater changes occurred in this country than in the condition of woman in respect to employment, wages, personal and property rights. In all heathen countries at this hour the mass of women are slaves or worse, wholly deprived of civil rights. In most Christian countries their legal status is one of absolute subordination in person and property to men. In this republic alone have we attained an altitude where some small measure of justice is meted out to women by the laws. ”

“ They want the ballot because the laws affecting labor and capital are made by the capitalist class alone and are therefore unjust. I do not forget the progressive legislation of New York in regard to the rights of women. The Property Bill of 1860, and its supplement, according to the New York Tribune, redeemed five thousand women from pauperism. In the next year, Illinois put women in the same position with men, as far as property rights and remedies are concerned. ”

“ But the Married Women's Property Acts, combined with other enactments, such as the Guardianship of Infants Act, 1886, do much more than merely remove acknowledged grievances. They place one fact past a doubt—they demonstrate that a Parliament whereof every member is a man, and every elected member is chosen by men, is ready, at the instance of men advocating the rights of women, to remove every proved defect or unfairness in the laws relating to women. ”

“ We come now to the consideration of sex disability in regard to rights of property.
An unmarried woman, once she has become the owner of property, whether real or personal, has precisely the same rights and liabilities in respect of it as a man. The laws of inheritance, however, draw a distinction between men and women in the case of real estate. Women cannot inherit freehold property under an intestacy, except in default of male heirs. ”

“ The status of the unmarried woman is different from that of her married sister and will, accordingly, demand separate consideration. The rights of women, again, are to be viewed both from the legal and the social standpoint. Their legal rights include those of a private nature, such as the disposal of property, and public rights, such as suffrage, sitting on a jury, or holding office. Under social rights are included the right to an education, to earn a living, and the like. Let us glance first at the history of the legal rights of single women. ”

“ Resolved—That every effort to educate women, without according to them their rights, and arousing their conscience by the weight of their responsibilities, is futile, and a waste of labor.
Resolved—That the laws of property, as affecting married persons, demand a thorough revisal, so that all rights be equal between them; that the wife have, during life, an equal control over the property gained by their toil and sacrifices, and be heir to her husband precisely to that extent that he is heir to her, and entitled at her death to dispose by will of the same share of the joint property as he is. ”

“ The Legislature shall never create any distinction between the rights of men and women to acquire, own, enjoy and dispose of property of all kinds, or their power to contract in reference thereto. Married women are hereby emancipated from all disabilities on account of coverture. But this shall not prevent the Legislature from regulating contracts between husband and wife; nor shall the Legislature be prevented from regulating the sale of homesteads. The property belonging to the wife at the time of marriage no longer passes to her husband, although it is still largely under his control. ”

“ The State constitutions of many States, among them Illinois, have provided that a woman is entitled to all ordinary rights of property and contract "the same as" a man. Under this provision, when laws were passed for the protection of women, forbidding them to work more than a certain number of hours per day, they were originally held unconstitutional. The so-called women's-rights people (one could wish that there were a better or more respectful word) seem themselves to be divided on this point. The more radical resent any enforced inequality, industrial or social, between the sexes. ”

“ Every citizen in the state is to possess property and to administer it according to his will; hence, also, the woman who has no husband. This property need not be absolute property, money or valuables, but may also consist of civil rights or -privileges. There is no reason why women should not have these. Woman can own land and carry -on agriculture. ”

“ Only gradually did women gain power to hold property themselves. Mainly because fathers wished to preserve property in their families, the right of women to inherit became slowly established as civilization advanced. In Judea, Greece and Rome, certain rights of a woman to hold property were clearly settled. In the reversion to force under feudalism, woman's rights to outside property suffered ”

“ In the legislature of 1856 the first great and important act relating to the property rights of women was passed. It was to the effect that women could hold all property earned or acquired independently of their husbands. ”

“ Since 1877, women have been able to act as witnesses in civil suits. Women (even married women) can be guardians. The property laws provide for separation of property. Even in cases of joint property holding, the wife controls her earnings and savings. ”

“ While the law treats men and women equally in terms of property rights in divorce settlements and inheritance matters, in practice women faced discrimination in employment, salary, welfare, inheritance, and promotion. Women reportedly formed the majority of the working poor and those who fall outside the protection of labor laws. ”