Tracts of Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association. No. 1. 
 
 LEGAL DISABILITIES 
 
 OP 
 
 MARRIED WOMEN 
 
 IX COXXECTTCTJT. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE A. IIICKOX, 
 
 LITCHFIELD, CONN. 
 
 This Tract may be obtained from Case, Lockwood & Braiuard, Hartford, C01111. 
 Price, $10.50 per thousand. 
 
 HARTFORD: 
 PRINTED BY CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD. 
 1871. 
 
By the Constitution of the Connecticut "Woman Suffrage 
 Association, all persons subscribing to the Constitution and 
 paving one dollar, become members of the Association. 
 
 The officers of the Association for the year commencing Sep- 
 tember 'J, 1870, are as follows : 
 
 President. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Nj J. BURTON, Hartford. 
 
 Vice Presidents. 
 Rev. Dr. JOSEPH CUMMINGS, Middletown. 
 Rev. Dr. C. E. STOWE, Hartford. 
 Mrs. H. B. STOWE, Hartford. 
 Rev. W. L. GAGE, Hartford. 
 TIMOTHY M. ALLYN, Hartford. 
 JOHN HOOKER, Hartford. 
 Rev. C. C. CARPENTER, Derby. 
 
 Mrs. THOMAS ELMES, Derby." * 
 
 Rev. Dr. T. T. STONE, Brooklyn. 
 
 Brig. Gen. B. S. ROBERTS, New Haven. 
 
 CHARLES CHENEY, South Manchester. 
 
 WARD CHENEY, South Manchester. 
 
 Rev. W. W. BELDEN, Bristol. 
 
 GEORGE A. HICKOX, Litchfield. 
 
 {secretary. 
 
 Miss F. E. BURR, 788 Main St., Hartford. 
 
 Treasurer. 
 JOHN HOOKER, Hartford. 
 
 Executive Committee. 
 Mrs. JOHN HOOKER, Hartford. 
 Mrs. MARSHALL JEWELL, Hartford. 
 Miss ESTHER PRATT, Hartford. 
 Mrs. J. G. PARSONS, Hartford. 
 Mrs. WM. B. SMITH, Hartford. 
 JOHN IVES, Hartford. 
 Rev. PHOEBE HANAFORD, New Haven. 
 CHARLES AT WATER, New Haven. 
 Rev. OLYMPIA BROWN, Bridgeport. 
 
 Ave* 
 
LEGAL DISABILITIES 
 
 OF 
 
 MARRIED WOMEN IX CONNECTICUT. 
 
 So many incorrect and incomplete statements of the law of 
 Connec.icut regarding married women have found their way 
 into print that there has arisen an obvious necessity for re- 
 ducing that law to some convenient form for reference. Imper- 
 fect as the following resume may be, it will probably give a 
 better idea of the legal relation between man and wife as it 
 exists in this State, than any to which those who have not made 
 a special study of the matter will have been able to arrive. 
 
 The first mistake into which a person, not a lawyer by pro- 
 fession, is apt to fall in endeavoring to inform himself on legal 
 subjects, is that of supposing that the whole, or at least the 
 most important part, of our law can be found in the statute 
 book. Such is not the case. The basis of our jurisprudence 
 is what is called the common law, to be gathered from the prac- 
 tice and decisions of the English and American courts for hund- 
 reds of years past. It is sometimes called the unwritten law 
 from the fact that no authorized code or digest has ever been 
 made of it. as was the case with the civil law under Justinian, 
 and with the French law under Napoleon. The common law 
 has been added to and changed by statute law ; but, except as 
 so modified, remains in force as the law of the land. Occasional 
 uncertainty arises as to what that law is, owing to a conflict of 
 decisions; but, in the absence of such conflict, decisions of the 
 English and American courts are generally considered as estab- 
 lishing the law for us as well as for them ; and all cases de- 
 cided in our Connecticut courts of highest resort are of binding 
 and conclusive authority, until the law is itself changed by the 
 legislature, or the decisions over-ruled in the court where they 
 were made. It so happens that all the alleviations of our 
 
4 LEGAL DISABILITIES OF MARRIED WOMEN. 
 
 marriage law are to be found in a few pages of our Revised 
 Statutes, while the far more important, unrepealed provisions 
 of the common law are scattered through numerous " reports," 
 and only briefly summarized in the text books. Hence an 
 unprofessional reader is more apt in this than in other branches 
 of the law to get erroneous impressions regarding its real con- 
 dition. 
 
 The subject is naturally divided into three heads, which we 
 arrange in the order of their importance : 
 
 I. Tiie wife's personal subjection to the husband. 
 
 II. Her want of legal authority over their children. 
 
 III. Her property. 
 
I— THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 
 
 The lena-1 rights of the husband to the custody of the person, 
 to the strict obedience, and to the services, of the wife, are 
 almost precisely the same th;it the father has to the custody, 
 obedience, and services of his minor child. His duty of main- 
 tenance is the same ; and only gross misconduct, similar to that 
 which justifies the minor in repudiating the parental authority, 
 or third persons in interfering in its behalf, will justify the wife 
 in repudiating the marital authority, or the interference of 
 friends in her behalf. 
 
 I. The husband's right to the custody of his wife's 
 
 PERSON. 
 
 The husband has the sole right to choose the place of resi- 
 dence, the manner of life, the social and even the religious 
 connections of the family — for the wife as well as for his 
 children. He may forbid her attending the church of which 
 she is a member,* and may interdict all intercourse with her 
 relatives or with his. t Nor Will she be justified in leaving him 
 unless he is guilty of such misconduct as would entitle her to- 
 a divorce. $ 
 
 *Tn Latvrence vs. Lawrence, (3 Paige, 272) the wife being a member of the Presbyte- 
 rian Church, the husband, who had quarrelled with that church, would not allow her 
 to attend it. Chancellor Walworth, in rendering the decision refusing her a divorce a 
 mensa et thoro, says, " Although it was an act of great unkindness and of unreasonable 
 oppression on the part of the husband to use his marital power in separating his wifo 
 from the church of which she was a member, and with which she preferred to worship. 
 I have no hesitation in saying that she mistook her duty in not submitting to the 
 oppressor." 
 
 tl Bishop on Mar. and Div., § 758. In Shaiv vs. Shaw, decided in our Supreme 
 Court, in 1845, Ch. Justice Williams says in giving the opinion of the court : " Again, 
 influenced by the same evil passion, [jealousy] the defendant has been unwilling his 
 wife should visit her own mother, and her mother-in law, and other friends, and has 
 forbidden such intercourse: and once he turned the mother-in-law out of the house,, 
 without cause, and forbade his wife to leave the house. This conduct is certainly harsh , 
 if not cruel ; but, as the husba?id must have the right to say who shall be admitted to 
 his house, and in some measure, to regulate the intercourse of his wife, the court caiinui 
 draw a line by which his authority can be restrained.'' 
 
 1 1 Bishop on Mar. and Div. , § 569. 
 
6 THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 
 
 In case the wife leaves the husband, except for legal cause 
 (dopes, as the law terms it), three ways of compelling her 
 return are open to him : 
 
 1st. He may seize her person wherever he finds it.* The 
 works of our Connecticut lawyers are explicit on this pomt. 
 Chief Justice Reeve says, "It seems to be well settled that if 
 a wife elope and go away from her husband without cause, the 
 husband may seize upon her person and bring her home." J In 
 Judge Dutton's revision of Chief Justice Swift's Digest of the 
 Laws of Connecticut the power of the husband over the wife 
 is concisely stated as follows : " The hu band has power and 
 dominion over his wife, as he is responsible for her actions ; he 
 may control, regulate, and restrain her conduct, and keep h« r 
 hj force within the bounds of duty, and under due subjection 
 and subordination.'^ 
 
 2d. He may bring a civil suit against those advising her 
 flight, or harboring her afterwards with knowledge of the facts || 
 What constitutes harboring in such cases is thus defined by the 
 court in a case decided in the New York Supreme Court m 
 1848 : "The husband has a right to the society and assistance 
 of his wife, and whoever persuades or entices her to separaie 
 herself froin, him, and thus deprives him of that right is liable 
 in this action. Thus, if the defendant had opposed the plaintiff 
 in an attempt to take his wife home ; or had refused him access 
 to his wife while she was remaining in his house ; if he had 
 
 * " The husband. says Lord Mansfield, " has in consequence of his marriage, a right 
 to the custody of his wife, and whoever detains he" from him, violates his right, and he 
 has a right to seize her wherever he finds her." See 8 Dowl. P. C., bo2 it vis held in 
 a North Carolina case, decided in 1849, that a husband might lawfully use force to 
 regain possession of his wife from one with whom he has reason to helieve she had com- 
 naitted, or is about to commit, adultery. State vs. Craton, 6 Iredell, 164. This right is 
 also incidentally recognized in the cases of $rhunf7na,i vs. Pahver, 4 Barb., 'ITi . and 
 Turner vs. Estes. 3 Mass., ol8. It would seem from the case of Luc it vs. Pons'ord, 
 (S C. & l\, <>87) that a husband would be justified even in forcibly entering the premi.-es 
 of a third person to get possession of the person of a wife harbored there. 
 
 t Dom. Bel., G6. +1 Sw. Dig., 40. 
 
 II By an old statute of Edward I., the person so interfering was liable to fine an. 1 
 imprisonment (3 Bl. Com., 159). "The old iaw was so strict in this point ' sa s 
 Blackstone, " that if one's wife missed her way upon the rond, it was not lawful for 
 another man to take her into his house, unless she was benighted and in danger i f 
 being lost or drowned . but a stranger might carry her behind him on horseback to 
 market, to a justice of the peace for a warrant against her husband, or to the spiritual 
 court, to sue for a divorce In Winsmare vs. Greenbank, ( vVilles, 577,) the husband 
 recovered t'3 OCmT damages against the defendant who harbored and concealed the wiffe 
 and advised her not to return to him. The Court say, " every moment that a wife 
 continues absent from her husband (without justifiable cause) without his consent, is a 
 new tort, and every one who persuades her to do to. does a new i.ijury, and cannot but 
 know it.'' 
 
THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 7 
 
 attempted to conceal her from her husband ; in short, if he had 
 done anything with a view to deprive the plaintiff' of the com- 
 pany or service of his wife, it would undoubtedly constitute 
 such a harboring as the law contemplates when it gives this 
 action to the husband."* This form of remedy has been sanc- 
 tioned in very recent cases and enforced by very heavy verdicts-! 
 
 3d. The husband may retain his eloping wife's property, 
 and refuse her a maintenance ; he may retain their children, 
 and refuse her access to them ; and he can seize any property 
 she may be so fortunate as to acquire subsequently. In short, 
 such is her state of destitution, and so manifold her disabilities, 
 that he can rely on them to compel her return, unless, indeed, 
 his person has become so odious to her as to render the harshest 
 and most hopeless poverty preferable to his society. 
 
 It is not easy to determine precisely what coercive measures 
 the husband may take to enforce the legal duty of the wife 
 while living with him. Judge Swift maintains, as we have seen 
 above, that "he may control, regulate, and restrain her conduct, 
 and keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and under due 
 subjection and subordination." The English authorities even 
 go to the length of permitting the husband to keep the wife in 
 confinement for an indefinite period unless she appear willing to 
 submit to his authority. % 
 
 * Schunemanxs. Palmer, 4 Barb., 227. 
 
 t Barnes vs. AUen, 30 Barb., 663. In a late New York case (Srherpf vs. Szadeczkij, 
 4 E. D. Smith, 110) a verdict of $10,000 was rendered against the person wiio enticed 
 away tiie plaintiff's wife, although no crim. con. was charged. 
 
 + " There can be no question respecting the common law right of a husband to 
 restrain his wife of her personal liberty, wittia view to prevent her going into society of 
 which he disapproves, or otherwise disobeying his rightful authority.** 1 Wend. Bl., 
 445, note. " He may in the plenitude of his power, adopt any act of physical coercion 
 which does not endanger the life or health of the wife or render cohabitation unsafe.'' 
 4 Petersdorfs Ab., 21, note. On this point the decision of Justice Coleridge in re 
 Cochrane (8 Dowl. P. C., 632), is a leading case. Mrs. Cochrane had left her husband in 
 lS3'i and resided abroad with her mother for four years, conducting herself with entire 
 propriety. Obtaining possession of her person by strategem, he confined her to his 
 house in England. She avowed her determination to leave him again on the first oppor- 
 tunity, and the court decided that under such circumstances the husband was justified 
 in keeping her in confinement. " The principle on which it [the law] proceeds, is 
 broad aud comprehensive : it has respect to the terms of the marriage contract and the 
 infirmity of the sex. For the happiness and honor of both parties, it places the wife 
 under the guardianship of the husband, and entitles him for the sake of both, to pro- 
 tect her from the danger of unrestrained intercourse with the world, by enforcing 
 cohabitation and a common residence. * * * It is urged that I am sentencing her 
 to perpetual imprisonment. Cases of hardship will arise under any general rule, and 
 so long as there are, unfortunately, ill assorted unions, there will be cases in which wives: 
 will feel it hard to be compelled to reside with their husbands. * * * But if then; 
 is anything painful in the present state of things, she cannot properly complain of ir, 
 for it arises from her own breach of duty, and she may end it whenever she will cheer- 
 fully and frankly resolve on performing tae contract she has entered into.'" In tue 
 
8 THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 
 
 A remarkable case illustrative of the husband's power over 
 the wife's person was decided in our Supreme Court in 1845.* 
 This was a divorce suit brought by the wife on the ground of 
 intolerable cruelty, the so-called omnibus clause not having then 
 been introduced into our statute. The petitioner proved that 
 her husband was in the habit of using the most abusive language 
 towar d- her, and that he had repeatedly accused her of adultery, 
 lie forbade her having any intercourse with her friends ; he 
 turned the mother of her former husband (who had come to 
 pee her when she was sick) out of the house ; on one occasion 
 lie forbade the petitioner to leave the house and endeavored to 
 fasten her into it ; and he otherwise behaved in a most brutal 
 manner towards her. f The court held that whatever might 
 have been the unreasonableness and " indelicacy" of his con- 
 duct, i b was not unlawful, and refused to grant a separation, t 
 
 The authority of the husband as the legal custodian of the 
 person of the wife is so absolute, and in general so undisputed, 
 that cases regarding it are not of so frequent occurrence in the 
 books as those concerning their respective rights of property. 
 Hence, in order to show how completely the law will, in case 
 of necessity, vindicate that authority, judicial decisions and legal 
 opinions have been cited much more fully than will be nece.-sary 
 011 other branches of the subject. 
 
 II. The husband's right to the services of the wife. 
 
 Whatever the wife earns in the service of the husband 
 belongs to him absolutely. Whatever she earns in the service 
 of others vests in him under the law regulating property coming 
 to her from any other source. § " In general, whatever she 
 earns, she earns as his servant, and for him ; for in law, her time, 
 and her labor, as well as her money, are his property." |j 
 
 absence of any American decisions, Bishop, in his works on Criminal Law and Marriage 
 and Divorce, doubts whether our courts would go to the length those of England have 
 done in constituting the husband not only judge and jury but jailer in cases of the 
 wife's disobedience. He does not, however, deny him the right to " restrain her locomo- 
 tiou" under certain circumstances: 1 Grim. Law, 775 ; 1 Mar. and Div., 756. 
 
 * Shcnc vs. Shaw, 17 Conn., 189, heretofore cited. 
 
 t lie frequently compelled her to occupy the same bed with him under circumstances 
 which endangered her health, and on two occasions took her, by force, from the bed of 
 his step-daughter, to which she had retired, and compelled her to occupy a bed with 
 himself. 
 
 + Subsequently, however, this grossly abused Jady obtained a divorce from the 
 legislature. 
 
 § Rev. Stats., 303, § 19. U 1 Pars. Cont., 345. 
 
THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 9 
 
 That the parent should be entitled to the services of a minor 
 child is eminently just ; he only receives a quid pro quo. In- 
 deed the child earns its father, on an average, far less than it 
 costs him, from the time of its birth till it arrives at majority. 
 Such is not the case with the wife. Most Connecticut women 
 marry at maturity, and spend the prime of their lives in the 
 service of their husbands. At the risk of their lives, and often 
 to the ruin of their health, they bear them children. Over 
 those children they have no legal control, except such delegated 
 power as their husbands choose to allow. They work more 
 hours a day than the hired servant, and were that labor recom- 
 pensed as the labor of women other than wives is recompensed, 
 it would ensure them a handsome support for their declining 
 years. Yet the law offers them no pretense, even, of such a 
 recompense. 
 
 Incident to the husband's right to the wife's services is her 
 right to a decent maintenance in accordance with their condition 
 in life. The law considers her entitled to necessary housing, 
 food, drink, clothing, and medicine. She may also have the 
 services of a lawyer to put her husband under bonds to keep 
 the peace, if he beat her, or threaten to beat her ; but not to 
 have him fined, * nor to procure a divorce f from him, for such 
 abuse. 
 
 Out of the husband's right to the wife's services grows his 
 right of action in case of injury to the wife's person, wherein 
 he may recover damages for loss of service and for attendance 
 and medicine supplied during her illness. It is also upon this 
 supposed loss of service that the husband's right of action for 
 the seduction, for the enticing away, or for the harboring of his 
 wife, is grounded. But although in such cases the loss of ser- 
 vice forms the ground of action, it does not limit the amount of 
 damages. Heavy " vindictive" damages are allowed the hus- 
 band for the presumed injury to his feelings, loss of wife's soci- 
 ety, &c. 
 
 III. The wife is by law disabled from protecting- 
 
 HER OWN INTERESTS. 
 
 The husband's absolute control over the person of the wife is 
 further secured by her legal inability to become a party to any 
 contract whatsoever. $ When living with the husband, and 
 
 * Gnndell ts. Gorlmond, 5 A. &>E., 755. t Shelton va. Pendleton, 18 Conn,, 417. 
 t Except such contracts as have direct reference to her " separate" property, should 
 she be processed of any. 
 
 2 
 
10 THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 
 
 managing his household, the law implies an agency, by virtue 
 of which she can make contracts on his behalf for household 
 supplies. Should he become dissatisfied with her management, 
 however, he can at any time terminate this implied agency and 
 stop his liability, by giving notice to the parties with whom she 
 is in the habit of dealing;* so that the common impression 
 that a wife can persist in running her husband in debt contrary 
 to his wishes, is a mistake. The inability to contract is more 
 complete in the case of married women even than in that of 
 minors. The contracts of the latter may be ratified on their 
 coming of age, whereas those of the former are absolutely void. 
 The practical result of this disability is to make it impossible 
 for a wife to engage or continue in any business without the 
 husband's consent, and greatly trammels her action where such 
 consent is given. 
 
 Not only can the wife make no contracts, and therefore under- 
 take no business, without the husband's consent, she cannot 
 even protect her person, her reputation, or her property by 
 bringing suits for injuries to them. All such suits are brought 
 in the names of husband and wife jointly, but she has no con- 
 trol over them, whatsoever ; he usee her name, indeed, but may 
 do so without her consent, or even contrary to her wishes. So 
 entire is his authority over the matter, that if he sees fit to use 
 force for securing custody of her person or obedience to his 
 commands, both he and his agents are screened from civil suit 
 on her behalf, f I» fcict, the married woman's disability in this 
 respect is more complete than that of the minor, who can sue 
 by u next friend." 
 
 The damages recovered by the husband for injuries to the 
 person, reputation, and property of the wife, vested in him 
 absolutely, at common law ; but by our present statute only the 
 use of the same would belong to him, as is the case with other 
 
 * " Ordinarily he [the husband] will be presumed to assent to her [the wife's] making 
 such purchases as in the conduct of the domestic concerns are proper for her manage- 
 ment and supervision ; but he is at liberty to withhold such assent, and destroy such 
 presumption, by an express prohibition : and if he do so, no one, having notice thereof, 
 may trust the wife in reliance upon his credit, unless the husband so neglects his own 
 duty that supplies become absolutely necessary, according to their condition." Wood- 
 ruff J. in Keller vs. Phillips, decided in the New York Court of Appeals in 1S68 (39 N. 
 Y., 355). 
 
 t About a year since, a husband procured the publication in a newspaper in Litchfield 
 county of a notice charging his wife with adultery, and with having given birth to an 
 illegitimate child. The publication was probably with a view to blacken her character 
 and facilitate his obtaining a divorce : nevertheless our law left her entirely without 
 legal power to redress so flagrant an injury to her reputation. 
 
THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 11 
 
 property accruing to the wife during marriage. By a recipro- 
 cal provision of the law, suits for injuries committed by the 
 wife to the persons or property of others must be brought 
 against husband and wife jointly ; and the property or persons 
 of both, or either, may be taken in satisfaction of judgments 
 rendered against them in such suits. The courts of Connecticut 
 are less liberal than those of England to the wife when impris- 
 oned on civil process. The latter discharge the wife on motion, 
 if she has no property ; whereas, by our practice, she must 
 sutler confinement and procure her release like any other im- 
 prisoned defendant. * 
 
 For her criminal acts a married woman is alone liable. The 
 control the husband is supposed to exercise over the wife is so 
 great, however, that all crimes (except treason, murder, and 
 keeping a house of ill-fame), committed by her in his presence, 
 are presumed to have been done under such coercion as to 
 remove all moral responsibility on her part, and he only will be 
 punished for them. She will be acquitted in such case, unless 
 it is proved affirmatively that she acted of her own free will 
 and not under his direction. Should a married woman be 
 prosecuted and convicted of crime, her husband is not liable for 
 payment of fine or costs ; f and it would seem that he would 
 not be liable for the expense of her defence, even if he himself 
 instigated her prosecution. % 
 
 IV. The unequal legal provisions for enforcing 
 
 THE RESPECTIVE DUTIES OF HUSBAND AND WIPE. 
 
 It is entirely characteristic of the existing law of marriage 
 that while the most arbitrary authority is given the husband to 
 secure the legal obligations on the part of the wife, no corres- 
 ponding care is taken to ensure the performance of the duties 
 of the marriage covenant on his part. 
 
 In case the wife leaves the husband for cause not justifying 
 divorce, he may seize her by force, he may prosecute the 
 friends who harbor her, and he has a terrible ally in her condi- 
 tion of utter poverty and destitution. All her property remains 
 in his hands and cannot be removed without his consent. If 
 
 * Rail vs White, 27 Conn., 495. fBates vs. Enright, 42 Me., 117. 
 
 X The only Connecticut case we have found directly in point is that of Shelton vs. 
 Hoadiy, 15 Conn., 535. Here a wife was complained of by her husband for violent 
 conduct and imprisoned on her failure to procure sureties of the peace. Her attorney 
 sued her husband for his fees, and the Superior Court decided against his claim. The 
 Supreme Court gave no opinion on the merits of the case. 
 
12 THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 
 
 she attempt to earn other property, or secure a salaried position, 
 he can seize that properly and demand that salary, notwith- 
 standing his own liability for her support has ceased. On the 
 other hand, the legal provisions to secure the wife the society 
 of the husband are absurdly inadequate. If he is rich enough 
 to afford her a separate maintenance, he may pension her off at 
 any moment he sees fit. The English reports are full of decis- 
 ions arising under this practice. * If he is poor enough, or 
 cunning enough, to have no property within reach of the sheriff, 
 his duty of maintenance practically ceases, since it cannot be 
 enforced. Should she be totally abandoned, indeed, the wife 
 recovers her independence ; | but the shiftless husband who 
 lives upon the services of the industrious wife still enjoys his 
 full marital authority over her person and property. 
 
 It will be seen hereafter that the husband's right of curtesy, 
 '*. e., to the use of all the wife's real estate for life (provided 
 they have had living issue), is secured to him absolutely ; while 
 the wife's right of dower, i. e., to the use for life of one-third 
 her deceased husband's real estate, may be easily defeated by 
 his conversion of that estate into personal property during his 
 life-time, without her consent, or by his disposing of it among 
 his heirs b} r deed instead of by will. $ In like manner the hus- 
 band has the use of all the wife's personal estate during his life., 
 whatever her will may be ; § while he has the power to cut her 
 off by will from her distributor}- share in his personal estate. 
 
 But the grossest inequality occurs in case of violation of 
 matrimonial duty on the part of the husband or wife. If she 
 commit adultery, he may have her imprisoned from two to five 
 years in the State Prison ; || he may procure a divorce ; or he 
 may turn her out of doors, without becoming liable for her sup- 
 port. 2sor will the fact that he has himself been guilty of a 
 
 * A deed of separate maintenance which we find in Leu-is vs. Ponsford, 8 C. & P., 
 687 ; shows the kind of agreement usually made, and enumerates very carefully the 
 marital privileges renounced : the husband covenants, 11 That notwithstanding their 
 marriage.it shall be lawful for the said M. P. [the wife] at all times to live separate 
 from him the said J. P. [the husband] in such manner as if she were sole and unmarried. 
 And that he shall not nor will compel her to cohabit or live with him by any ecclesiasti- 
 cal censure or proceeding, or otherwise howsoever, nor sue or prosecute any person or 
 persons for receiving, harboring, or cherishing the said M. P., nor use or offer any 
 violence, force or restraint to the person of the said M. P.. or molest or disturb her in 
 her way of living or in her liberty of going or staying in such place or places as she shall 
 think tit. but that she shall to all intents whatsoever be ireed from the power, will, 
 restraint and authority of the said J. P. ? ' 
 
 tRev. Stats., 304, §24,2-5. 
 
 + Stewart vs. Stewart, 5 Conn., 317. § Rev. Stats., 304, §20. || Rev. Stats., 265. 
 
THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 13 
 
 like crime affect his right to discard the wife, and refuse her a 
 maintenance, although under such circumstances neither party 
 would be allowed a divorce. It has been decided that even 
 where the husband had introduced a mistress into his family 
 and had driven out his wife, her subsequent adultery would 
 absolve him from further liability for her support. * If the hus- 
 band, on the other hand, is incontinent (unless the wife of some 
 other man is involved), he can only be punished by a fine of 
 Sevan dollars or by thirty days imprisonment in the common 
 jail, f His wife may obtain a divorce, or she may leave him 
 without divorce ; but in the latter event he will still be entitled 
 to the custody of her children, and of her property, even of 
 what she may subsequently earn, and she will still be unable to 
 make contracts or do business as an unmarried woman. Unless 
 divorced, her only right will be that of a bare maintenance, to 
 be enforced by suits, as for ordinary debts, on the part of those 
 furnishing her such maintenance. 
 
 One of the greatest legal advantages of husband over wife, 
 in case of difference or litigation between them, consists in his 
 possession of all the property of both parties. If she commences 
 a suit for divorce, she must begin by leaving her home, her 
 children, and her property, in his hands. Connecticut courts, 
 less liberal than most in that particular, w T ill make her no allow- 
 ance, even out of her own property, for employment of counsel, 
 or for preparation and trial in a suit for divorce against her 
 husband. % Even if she prove the grossest misconduct on his 
 part, the court will allow her no costs. In case of suit for 
 divorce by the husband against the wife, the court will, indeed, 
 order the payment to her attorney of funds (practically a very 
 insufficient amount) for maintaining her defence. Should he 
 procure her prosecution for adultery, or other crime, the decis- 
 ions w r ould indicate that he would not be obliged to employ 
 counsel or furnish funds for her defence. § How unequal the 
 contest must be between one possessing all the sinews of litiga- 
 tion, and one dependent upon charity for the maintenance of 
 her rights, is sufficiently manifest. 
 
 * Govier vs. Hancock, 6 Term, G03. This decision is fully sustained by the court in 
 the late case of Gill vs. Read, 5 R. I. , 345. 
 
 t Rev. Stats., 266. % Shelton vs. Pendleton, 18 Conn., 41". 
 
 §Shelton vs. Hoadley, 15 Conn., 535. 
 
11 
 
 TUB WIPES PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 
 
 It is much easier to trace the origin than to apologize for the 
 continuance of such laws as we have sketched above. " At com- 
 mon law," says Professor Parsons, " the disability of a married 
 woman is almost entire. Her personal existence is merged for 
 most purposes in that of her husband. This was not so among 
 the Anglo-Saxons, nor with the earlier Teutonic races ; and 
 must be explained as one of the effects of the feudal system." 
 Under that system dependence was the universal rule. It was 
 then believed that the peace and well being of the community 
 could only be secured by the dependence of the mass of the 
 population on certain feudal superiors, and by the further depend- 
 ence of those superiors on one sovereign will. Just as it is now 
 argued that equality and order are incompatible in the marriage 
 state, it was then supposed that equality and order were incom- 
 patible in the political state. During the centuries that have 
 elapsed since our marriage law took its present shape, the 
 emancipation and then the enfranchisement of bne class after 
 another has been effected, till at last, in this country, every male 
 citizen has his freedom and his vote. The last step in this 
 reform has been attained at the cost of a great social and polit- 
 ical revolution, overturning the government of the few possessed 
 of property and intelligence, and establishing the government 
 of the many possessed of neither. This revolution has been 
 effected, and can only be justified, on the principle that no class 
 or race of men, however superior by nature and education, can 
 be trusted with the political and social control of any other 
 class, however degraded by ignorance or inferior by nature. 
 The theory of universal suffrage is based on the great lesson of 
 all political experience, — that only those who suffer from abuses 
 will ever thoroughly remedy them. Slavery would have waited 
 long for abolition at the hands of slave-holders ; and who will 
 claim that Northern philanthropy was pure enough to have 
 abolished slavery, or to have established negro suffrage, had 
 there been no manifest military or political advantage to accrue 
 to those abolishing the one, or establishing the other ? 
 
 The history of the legislation of the last quarter of a century 
 regarding the law of marriage forms no exception to the general 
 rule. . None of those statute alleviations of the harshness of the 
 common law have reached the root of the evil — the absolute 
 personal dependence of the wife on the husband. The tender- 
 ness with which legislatures treat this sole remaining relic of a 
 scheme of dependence, once general, is truly wonderful, espe- 
 
THE WIFE'S PERSONAL SUBJECTION. 15 
 
 cially as contrasted with the root-and-branch work that has heen 
 made with every system of* male tutelage. In the fundamental 
 rule of the wife's personal subjection — the most important 
 branch of this subject, and the only one yet considered — no 
 reform has even been attempted. In many States the property 
 rights of married women have been placed on a footing approx- 
 imating to equality. In none has her personal liberty been 
 secured, or her legal servitude alleviated, except in the most 
 superficial, we might justly say unintentional manner. Yet it 
 must be perfectly obvious that personal rights must precede 
 property rights to render the latter of any real avail ; the secur- 
 ing of u separate" property to one under strict tutelage to a legal 
 master, is not the thorough work legislators make when they 
 remedy abuses under the sharp eye of the suffering voter. Soci- 
 ety educates women with a view to marriage, and to marriage 
 only ; yet she cannot marry without renouncing that liberty of 
 person and that equality of right which are the boasted inheri- 
 tance of every American citizen. With the single exception 
 of corporeal chastisement, the same modes of enforcing obedi- 
 ence are open to the husband that are given to the father. Any 
 system that should place a man, arrived at the maturity of his 
 bodily and mental powers, in such a state of subjection, and 
 should bind him, moreover, to hard labor for a mere maintenance, 
 would be reckoned a monstrous tyranny. Regulations made 
 shortly after the war which proposed a far less stringent obedi- 
 ence on the part of the Southern freedman towards the South- 
 ern planter, were indignantly rejected by the dominant North. 
 The introduction of Coolie laborers, bound to service for a term 
 of years, has been made a penal offence. Yet a system of 
 dependence which condemns to complete, if not to harsh, servi- 
 tude a large, industrious, and intelligent portion of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, continues to be the law of the land ! * 
 
 * An amusing instance of the superficial way in which this subject has been treated, 
 has appeared of late in the journals opposed to female suffrage : It was gravely affirmed 
 that in several States, where the husband was living in his wife's house, she had the 
 legal power to turn him out into the street. Yet the husband, as we have seen, would 
 in such case have the legal right to take his wife with him by force, could compel ber to 
 remain with him, living in the manner s ratable to his condition, and could put her into 
 actual confinement if she manifested a disposition to " elope. 1 ' 
 
II— THE WIFE'S WANT OF LEGAL AUTHORITY OYER HER 
 CHILDREN. 
 
 " A mother, as such," says Blackstone, " is entitled to no 
 power, but only to reverence and respect."* So completely is 
 the existence of the wife merged in that of the husband, at 
 common law, that the whole parental authority vests in him 
 alone. Whatever may be the common practice, the law makes 
 the wife and children co-servants of the legal head of the family. 
 
 I — When husband and wife live together. 
 
 In no case that we are aware of, is the mother, living with 
 the father, recognized by law as having any legal rights over, 
 or interest in, her children. She may be deprived, at any time, 
 of their society by the father's sending them out to service, 
 without her consent, f The father may, if they desire, bind 
 them out as apprentices, during minority, without her consent.^ 
 He may also give them away without her consent to various 
 charitable associations incorporated in this state. We find, also, 
 on reference to the " Act Concerning Prisons," that a father 
 can, without consent of the mother, indenture his boys to the 
 State Reform School § where they will be " subject to the same 
 regulations, employment, and restraint, as all other inmates of 
 said school." (Sec. 29.) There might, perhaps, arise a question 
 under the wording of the statute regulating the giving away of 
 children in adoption, whether the mother's consent would be 
 required ; and, practically, the court of probate would hardly 
 assent to such a proceeding contrary to her wishes. Only when 
 the husband becomes manifestly unfit, from insanity, intemper- 
 
 * 1 Bl. Com., 453! t Bay vs. Everitt, 7 Mass., 147. t Rev. Stats., 317, Sec. 93. 
 
 § Rev. Stats., 632, Sec. 26. The word " parent" in this, and other statutes, is con- 
 strued as referring to the father alone, if he is living ; if he is not, and no guardian has 
 been appointed, to the mother. 
 
HER WANT OF LEGAL AUTHORITY. 17 
 
 ance, cruelty or the like, to have control of his children, can a 
 guardian be appointed having custody of their persons. * 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the wife's entire want of legal control 
 over her children, her property is in many ways held liable for 
 their support. By statute, the rents, profits, and interest of the 
 wife's property are liable to be taken by legal process for debts 
 contracted by the husband u for the support of the wife and her 
 children." \ In some cases, even, he may* use the principal of 
 her property " for the support of the wife, or the issue of their 
 marriage." Our Supreme Court expressly declare that the 
 parental duty of the mother is equal to that of the father, in 
 regard to the support of their children, and that during marriage 
 it is suspended, or postponed, only because her civil existence is 
 merged in that of her husband and because her property is all 
 in his hands. \ Even then, should she have a competent sepa- 
 rate estate, and her husband none, a court of chancery would 
 decree a maintenance by the mother. § 
 
 Parents abandoning and exposing their infant children are 
 liable to punishment in the State Prison. || 
 
 II — When husband and wife live separate. 
 
 Upon separation of husband and wife, the former will be 
 entitled to the custody of their children, unless some positive 
 unfitness, such as insanity, intemperance, cruel treatment or 
 abandonment is proved against him. The common law justified 
 the father in reclaiming his child by the harshest means, H and 
 even in cases where the wife had been obliged to leave him on 
 account of his gross profligacy. ** It is not surjmsing that 
 
 *Rev. Stats., 313. tRev. Stats., 304, Sec. 20. %Finch vs. Finch, 22 Conn., 411. 
 
 § Do. 417, citing 2 Kent Com., 192. || Rev. Stats., 250, Sec. 32. 
 
 H In the case of Rex vs. De ManneviUe, tried before the Court of King's Bench in 
 1803, the wife had separated from her husband, on the ground of alleged ill treatment, 
 and kept her child, which was nursiug, with her. The husband got into the house 
 where she was, forcibly seized the child, then at the breast, and but eight months old, 
 and carried it away almost naked, in an open carriage, in inclement weather. The wife 
 brought a writ of habeas corpus, but the Court decided that the father was entitled to 
 the custody of the child. 5 East., 221. 
 
 ** In Rex vs. Greenhill, (4 A. & E., 624) the mother had left her husband on account 
 of his adultery, and sued for a divorce. She had taken away her three young girls, from 
 two and a half to five and a half years of age, and the husband brought a writ of habeas 
 corpus to obtaiu possession of their persons It was proved that he was living in adultery 
 with a Mrs. Graham, from whom he refused to part <; while uncertain of a reconciliation 
 with his wife." The children were given to the father, Lord Denman complaisantly 
 deciding, that, " although there is an illicit connection between Mr. Greenhill [the hus- 
 band] and Mrs. Graham, it is not pretended that she is keeping the house to which tha 
 children are to be brought, or that there is anything in the conduct of the parties so 
 offensive to decency as to render it improper that the children should be left under the 
 control of their father." 
 
18 HER WANT OF LEGAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 Lord Denman was obliged to confess in the House of Lords 
 that, " he felt ashamed of the state of the law and that it was 
 such as to render it odious in the eyes of the country." A 
 statute was subsequently enacted granting English wives, living 
 separate from their husbands, right of access to, and in some 
 cases custody of, their children. 
 
 In frequent and late American decisions the paramount 
 authority of the husband has been fully recognized, but the 
 mother has generally been allowed the custody of infant chil- 
 dren, so young that they would be likely to suffer without her 
 care. * In Connecticut, where the wife has sued for divorce, 
 or has attained a decree in such a suit, or where she is living 
 separate " by reason of the abandonment or cruelty of the hus- 
 band," the court may grant her custody of her children, f It 
 is also provided by statute that in case the husband leave the 
 State and make no suitable provision for his children, at the 
 end of two years after such abandonment a guardian may be 
 appointed, and his parental authority will cease. % 
 
 Our highest court having decided in 1853 that, upon a di- 
 vorce, mother and father are equally liable for the support of 
 their children, § our state legislature passed an ^ict in the follow- 
 ing year authorizing the court in such case to inquire into the 
 pecuniary ability of the respective parties, and to apportion the 
 maintenance of children accordingly. The divorced wife, as 
 well as the widow, would unquestionably be liable to be treated 
 as a pauper and consigned to the poor house as such, if she failed 
 to mr uitain her children. || 
 
 One of the greatest sources of annoyance to the wife living 
 apart is owing to the fact that no agreement she can make with 
 her husband, giving her the custody of her children, will bind 
 him so that he cannot afterward reclaim them. In Mercein vs. 
 The People (3 Hill, 422), it was held that a written agreement 
 to that effect would not prevent the husband's changing his 
 mind and demanding restoration of his children. 
 
 * Johnson vs. Terry, 34 Conn., 259. Dumain et ux vs. Givvnne, 10 Alien, 271. 
 State vs. Richardson, 40 N. II., 273. People vs. Mercein, 25 Wend., 102 ; 3 Hill, 412. 
 
 t Rev. Stats., 307, Sees. 38 and 39. In such case, also, the power of appointing a 
 testamentary guardian, devolves on the wife. (Revised Stats., 314, Sec. 73). 
 
 t Pub. Acts '66— '68, 17. § Finch vs. Finch, above cited. 
 
 || Rev. Stats., 621, Sec. 19. 
 
THE WANT OF LEGAL AUTHORITY. 19 
 
 III — The authority of a ctidow over her children. 
 
 Upon the death of the husband the wife becomes liable for 
 the support of their children, in case they have no property, 
 and even to be treated as a pauper if she fail to maintain them. 
 But her rights over them are far inferior to those of the father. 
 Minors over fourteen years of age, having no father or guardian, 
 *an indenture themselves without their mother's consent. * So 
 late as 1866 our highest court decided that a guardian had a 
 right to the custody of the child in preference to its mother, f 
 Guardians may be appointed by the father by will (Sec. 73) ; 
 by the court of probate ; or by choice of the minor, if of 
 sufficient age, ratified by the court of probate (Sees. 65 and 66).$ 
 Guardians, so appointed, have the same power of indenturing 
 their wards to the State Reform School, and to masters, without 
 consent of the mother, that the father would have had if alive. 
 While it is expressly provided that the father and master shall 
 not be deprived of their control of the persons of their children, 
 or apprentices, by the appointment of a guardian (Sec. 69), no 
 provision is made in this State, as in Massachusetts, to secure 
 the mother any such right. Nor is she allowed in this State, 
 as in most whose statutes we have examined, any legal prefer- 
 ence over others who may apply for guardianship of her chil- 
 dren. In short, the power of a widow over her children would 
 seem to be little more than that of any other person in whose 
 hands they might chance to remain at their father's death.§ It 
 is doubtful whether any of the many species of common law 
 guardianship are recognized in her favor by the laws of Con- 
 necticut.! While maintaining them, she is unquestionably 
 entitled to their services, obedience, and to the wages they earn ; 
 but she can not assign their services to a third person, as a 
 father has the right to do.H " If it be intended to declare," say 
 the court in a late case, " that the mother is entitled to the 
 earnings of a minor child in the same manner as the father 
 
 * Rev. Stats. , 317, Sec. 94. t Macready vs. Wilcox, 33 Conn. , 321. 
 
 % Until the passage of a late act (Stats.- 1870, p. 463,) guardians were appointed with- 
 out even notifying the mother. 
 
 § Except in appointing a testamentary guardian, or where the word " parent" occurs 
 in a statute and no guardian has been appointed. 
 
 H Judge Swift affirms positively that " the mother is never considered as the guardian 
 of her children, unless it be of nursed children, till the age of seven years" (Sw. Dig. 50) ; 
 and Judge Dutton adds in his edition of that work, " this proposition has been quoted 
 with apparent approbation by Chief Justice Hosmer" (Klitie vs. Becbe, 6 Conn., 500). 
 
 IT 2 Bish. Mar. & Div., Sec. 528. 
 
20 
 
 HER WANT OF LEGAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 while alive, was entitled to them, the position cannot be sus- 
 tained."* 
 
 In case a widow marries, her second husband is not liable for 
 the support of his step-children, and the mother loses whatever 
 right she may have before had to the custody of the children 
 of her former marriage. " That right," says a New Hampshire 
 court, " is wholly lost and disappears where the mother surviv- 
 ing, has by a second marriage surrendered that legal discretion 
 which is necessary to render the parental control of benefit to 
 the child." t 
 
 IV — Criminal liability of the mother if she inter- 
 fere WITH THE LEGAL CUSTODIAN OF HER CHILDREN. 
 
 Persons having the legal custody of children are protected in 
 their rights by the severest penal laws, which may, it would 
 seem, be enforced against the mother as well as against any 
 stranger who should interfere with those rights. Should any 
 person "eloign," or entice away an apprentice from the service 
 of his master, they become liable to fine, and to imprisonment 
 in the common jail. A still severer statute prevents the 
 enticing away or concealing of children from the father, guard- 
 ian, master, charitable institution, or adopted parent, who may 
 have a legal right to their custody.t 
 
 V — The peculiar harshness of the law of Connec- 
 ticut. 
 
 Not only has the father or guardian been authorized, in many 
 cases, to deprive the mother of the society of her children, 
 without her consent, and without any misconduct on her part ; 
 not only is the right of the widowed mother in her children 
 unrecognized in our legislation ; but to the severity of the com- 
 mon law are added certain peculiar features, resting on our 
 statutes and decisions, which materially increase her legal re- 
 sponsibilities, and yet give her no additional rights. By common 
 law she was only responsible for the support of her children 
 when she had the means for their maintenance. By our statute, 
 whenever she becomes free to act, by the death of her husband, 
 
 * Pray vs. Gorham, 31 Me., 242. t State vs. Scott, 10 Foster, 277. 
 
 + " Every person who shall wilfully and maliciously lead, take or carry away, or 
 deco}-, or entice away, any child under the age of twelve years, with intent to detain or 
 conceal such child from its parent, guardian, or other person having the lawful charge 
 or custody of such child, shall suffer imprisonment in the Connecticut state prison, for 
 a term not less than two nor more than five years.*' (Rev. Stats., 250, Sect. 31.) 
 
HER WANT OF LEGAL AUTHORITY. 2\ 
 
 divorce from liim, or otherwise, she becomes liable to imprison- 
 ment in the poor-house, unless she support them, although she 
 has no property whatever. Then, too, by the decision of our 
 highest court, she is declared equally responsible for their sup- 
 port with the father, * contrary to the rule of the common law, 
 as was conclusively shown by Judges Ellsworth and Storrs in 
 their dissenting opinion in that case* and contrary to the usual 
 practice in this country, as appears from Professor Parsons' 
 work on Contracts, f Our courts and legislators seem to have 
 forgotten that if the mother is to be saddled with equal respon- 
 sibilities with the father, she ought to have some, at least, of 
 his rights ; that the law which enables the father, the guardian, 
 the master, the charitable institution, and even the State Reform 
 School, to tear the child from her arms, cannot justly punish her 
 ■with imprisonment in the alms-house should it come to want. 
 
 Least of all does it seem just that if the mother, with nature 
 tempting her so strongly, should entice away her children, 
 M with intent to detain or conceal" them from any of those to 
 whom the law may give their custody, she should be sentenced 
 to the State Prison not less than two years ! 
 
 The Law of Parent and Child is a very characteristic branch 
 of the Law of Marriage. That beautiful relation, that "mother- 
 hood" upon which has been built so much of the rhetoric of the 
 modern advocates of woman's subjection, seems to have been 
 overlooked by our law-makers in their desire to secure the 
 absolute authority of the husband and father. It is a tie that 
 he can break at pleasure, and which, after his death, lies com- 
 pletely at the mercy of the testamentary guardian, and of the 
 judge of probate. If the father tires of the support of his 
 children, he may send them out to service, indenture them to a 
 master, or " surrender" them to the charitable association, with- 
 out the mother's consent. If father and mother disagree, and 
 a son takes the part of the mother, the father may. in effect,, 
 sentence him to the Reform School, to herd with the criminals 
 in that institution : or. after depriving the mother of the society 
 of her children during his life, he may, by will, leave the legacy 
 
 * " As a -wife, this plaintiff was not legally bound to maintain their children ; as a 
 parent, she is, equally \riih the father." (Finc/i \s. Fi?ich, 22 Conn., 417.) 
 
 t voi i, p. 30a 
 
22 HER WANT OF LEGAL A UTHORITY. 
 
 of his spite to a testamentary guardian. Then, upon the death 
 of the father — no superior right of indentured master, charita- 
 ble association, State Reform School, or testamentary guardian, 
 supervening — the mother may apply to the court of probate 
 (before which she has no legal preference) for the guardianship 
 of her own children. If they are girls twelve years of age, or 
 over, or boys of fourteen, they may choose their own guardians. 
 
 If under that age, the mother will, by ou» usual practice, at 
 last attain, while they remain within the limits of the State, to 
 some real authority over the children she has borne and nur- 
 tured, and whom she is compelled by law to support. Should 
 the court of probate refuse her request, or should she be living 
 apart from her husband, by divorce, or by reason of his cruelty 
 and abandonment, her rights as a parent are, as we have seen, 
 of an extremely ill-defined and precarious nature. And, finally, 
 by a re-marriage she may forfeit all legal right to the custody 
 of her children, and lose all power to contribute to their support. 
 
 The neglect with which the law treats the mother seems 
 even more cruel than its harshness towards the wife. It gives 
 each infinite duties and infinitesimal rights ; but when we re- 
 member how much more her children cost the mother than the 
 father, we cannot but feel indignant that so much of the gush- 
 ing tenderness of conservatism should have found its way into 
 poetry, so little into the statute book. We look there in vain 
 for anything approaching a thorough reform. What slight alle- 
 viations of any moment our assembled male wisdom has yet 
 devised, are to be found in two sections of our much abused 
 law of divorce. 
 
III.— THE WIFE'S PROPERTY. 
 
 At common law all the personal or moveable properly owned 
 by the wife at the time of the marriage, or which accrued to 
 her subsequently, became the husband's absolutely; and he was 
 entitled to the use of all her real or immovable property (land, 
 houses, &c.,) during the continuance of the marriage in any 
 event, and, in case of the birth of living issue, during his life. 
 So, too, all debts due to her became his when realized by col- 
 lection ; and, in like manner, he became responsible for all 
 debts due from her, and might be sued therefor at any time 
 during the continuance of the marriage, but not afterwards. 
 All debts due from the husband to the wife before marriage 
 were extinguished the moment the parties entered into that 
 relation. Courts exercising what is called equity jurisdiction, 
 however, allowed property to be secured by marriage settlement, 
 by gift, or by will, to the sole and separate use of the wife, 
 apart from any control of the husband, usually with, but in 
 some cases without, the intervention of a trustee. But no 
 property of the wife was ever considered m equity her separate 
 estate, unless by express provision of the settlement, convey- 
 ance, or will, the husband was deprived of his customary 
 interest in that property. * 
 
 I — The wife's property under our present law. 
 / It has not been the design m Connecticut, as in most States 
 where reforms of the old law of marriage have been attempted, 
 to give the wife greater control over her property than she had 
 at common law, but merely to secure to her and her children a 
 maintenance out of it, and to secure them, also, the reversion 
 of the principal after the death of the husband. The legislature 
 began its modifications of the common law in 1845, by exempt- 
 ing the husband's interest in his wife's real estate from attach- 
 ment for his debts. In 1846, her wages were also exempted 
 
 * " The conveyance may be to trustee?, for the use and benefit of the wife, or directly 
 to the use of the wtfe, and then, if necessary, the law will consider the husband to be 
 trustee. When the conveyance is directly to the wife, it must be expressed to be to her 
 separate use, or equivalent words must be used. No precise form of words is necessary ; 
 it will be sufficient if the conveyance show it was intended that the husband should 
 nave no interest/' 2 Sw. Dig., 136. 
 
24 
 
 THE WIFE'S PROPERTY. 
 
 from attachment, and payment of such wages, or of the invest- 
 ments thereof, to her personally, were made valid. * In 1849, 
 a statute similar to the one now in existence was passed regarding 
 the wife's personal property, limited, at that time, to such as 
 came to the husband in her right by inheritance, during the 
 marriage. During the ten years following, the provisions of 
 this statute were extended to all property owned by the wife at 
 the time of marriage, or accruing to her from any other source 
 whatsoever. During the past ten years no changes of any 
 importance have been effected, except the passage of an act in 
 the interest of the husband, exonerating him from any responsi- 
 bility for any debts contracted by the wife before marriage, and 
 of a statute in the interest of the wife's separate creditors 
 allowing them to sue her at law. We briefly summarize the 
 existing law as follows : 
 
 The husband is still entitled to the possession of all his wife's 
 personal property (except such as may have been placed to her 
 "sole and separate" use in the hands of a trustee). He is 
 entitled to the income of that property during his life, and his 
 interest is not liable to attachment except for debts contracted 
 for the support of his w 7 ife and her children. Should he squander 
 the principal of his wife's estate, she may compel him to give 
 bond securing her reversionary interest, or to allow the appoint- 
 ment of a trustee in his place. Should he fail to maintain his 
 wife and children in a suitable manner, and also divert the 
 income of her property from their support, he will not only be 
 deprived of the custody of such property, but of his life interest 
 therein. 
 
 The husband may, at his pleasure, convey his interest in his 
 wife's real estate to a stranger for the term of his life, or less, 
 (if living issue has been born of the marriage) but he cannot 
 sell or transfer her personal property, or even his interest 
 therein, without her joining in a written conveyance thereof. 
 It is not a little remarkable, however, that if the wife join in a 
 deed of her real, or in a transfer of her personal property, the 
 power of the husband over the proceeds becomes materially 
 greater than it was over the property while in its original form. 
 In case of the sale of real estate, unless the wife insists upon 
 the investment of the proceeds in her own name they would 
 
 * But by our present statute the wife would seem to receive such wages only as the 
 agent of her husband (Rev. Stats., 303, Sec. 19), to whom sho may be compelled to pay 
 them over (See SherwoodYS. Sherwood, 32 Conn., 1, hereafter cited). 
 
THE WIFE'S PROPERTY. 
 
 25 
 
 seem to become the absolute property of the husband as at 
 common law.* So too should she suffer a sale or transfer of 
 her personal estate, he may expend the whole of the proceeds 
 " for the support of the wife, or the issue of their marriage," 
 without her consent, or may, with her written assent, dispose of 
 them in any other manner whatsoever, thus absolutely defeating 
 her reversionary interest. 
 
 The provision of the common law which gave the wife power 
 to act as a single woman in case her husband was a non-resident 
 alien, banished, or transported, has been extended by our statute 
 to all cases of abandonment. She thereby becomes entitled to 
 the custody of her property, and to transact business in her own 
 name. Nevertheless, her temporary independence ceases when- 
 ever the husband may choose to resume his marital duty and 
 authority. Even while abandoned, she cannot sell her real 
 estate except upon an order of court showing a total abandon- 
 ment for at least three years. 
 
 The husband may compel the wife to give up all her personal 
 property to him by an application to the court for that purpose, 
 and she will be imprisoned for contempt should she refuse to 
 obey such an order. In the very recent case of Sherwood vs. 
 Sherwood, (32 Conn., 1.) tried in Fairneld county in 18G4, the 
 wife was imprisoned in the common jail for several months 
 because she refused to obey the order of the Superior Court 
 commanding her to give up all her personal estate to her hus- 
 band ; and she only regained her liberty upon the legislature's 
 granting her a divorce ! 
 
 II — The wife's separate property. 
 
 The law regarding the separate property of married women, 
 which forms so important a portion of English equity jurispru- 
 dence, has little practical application to this State. Marriage 
 settlements are almost unknown among us. Mr. Hooker, our 
 State Eeporter, declares that, " ante-nuptial contracts, either 
 from ignorance on the part of the woman that they can be made, 
 or more often from a feeling of delicacy on her part which 
 every one can understand, are very rarely made. It is the 
 belief of the writer, from a somewhat extended observation on 
 the subject, that an ante-nuptial contract is not entered into with 
 regard to the wife's property in one case in forty of marriages 
 where there is a substantial property on the part of the wife." 
 
 * Rev Stats.j 302, Sec 13: Hawley ts. Burgess, 22 Conn., 2S4 ; Jcnriiiigs ts. Davis 
 31 Cnn., 143. 
 
26 
 
 THE WlFES PROPERTY. 
 
 For a long time our courts refused to adopt the practice of 
 the English court of chancery regarding the separate property 
 of married women, except to a very limited extent, or unless 
 such property was secured by the intervention of a trustee; and 
 with the appointment of a trustee generally came great restric- 
 tions on the wife's independent control of the estate so secured. 
 In fact, almost the only cases regarding separate estates that 
 have found their way into our reports are concerning gifts made 
 by husband to wife, or property over which she has exercised 
 ownership by his permission. Nor does the writer of these 
 articles recollect a single reported case in which the wife has 
 sought relief in a Connecticut court, of equity against her hus- 
 band. Still, such a cloud of legal dust has been raised over 
 the Connecticut law of marriage by constant reference to this 
 branch of equity jurisprudence in newspaper discussions, that 
 it seems necessary to attempt a brief sketch of its provisions, 
 and of the course of Connecticut decisions and legislation regard- 
 ing it. 
 
 Under the English equity system a married woman may 
 exercise almost the full control of the unmarried woman over 
 her property, in the following cases : Where, by marriage 
 settlement or by the express terms of a gift by will or otherwise, 
 property has been conveyed to the sole and separate use of the 
 wife, or where an absolute gift of property is made to her by 
 the husband, she is given, under the apparent ownership of a 
 trustee or of the husband, full control and power to manage 
 that property as if she were unmarried ; as regards real estate, 
 however, her control is limited to its rents and profits, and to 
 the disposition of it by will, subject to the husband's right of 
 curtesy should he survive her. This result is effected through 
 the intervention of courts of equity, or chancery as they are 
 sometimes called, by which the nominal owner (husband or 
 trustee) will be compelled to make precisely such disposition of 
 the property as the wife may direct, whether by way of invest" 
 ment, gift, or sale, and the court will also direct them to pay all 
 the debts she has contracted on the strength of such property, 
 and to perform all contracts she has made with reference to it. 
 In short, they are merely her agents for certain technical pur- 
 poses, without any real power whatsoever. The usual reason 
 for appointing a trustee is to avoid the risk of a seizure of the 
 separate estate by the husband's creditors, to which it would 
 seem to be liable in certain cases if no trustee is appointed ; or 
 to avoid the risk of his squandering it himself, if he is irrespon- 
 
THE WIFE'S PROPERTY. 
 
 2 7 
 
 sible. Should there be no trustee appointed, the husband will 
 hold the sole and separate estate of his wife as trustee, subject 
 to her direction and complete control like any other trustee. It 
 would appear, however, that the income of the separate proporti- 
 on being paid over by the trustee, or received by the wife, 
 becomes the absolute property of the husband at law, and even 
 in equity he will not be compelled to account for it unless the 
 wife is living apart from him, or objects to his receiving it. * 
 
 In most States, recent legislation recognizing the rights of 
 married women has taken the form of an extension of the 
 English equity rules, so as to make all the property of the wife 
 her separate estate. The nominal ownership of trustee or hus- 
 band is also dispensed with, and the Wife has substantially the 
 same control of her property after marriage as before. In 
 Connecticut, as we have seen, the course of legislation has been 
 far different ; and our law now allows the separate property of 
 the wife to be attached at law for her separate debts as well as 
 in certain cases for the debts of her husband, without enlarging 
 her control over it. J 
 
 The early decisions of our courts were hostile to the separate 
 property system. In 1804, it was decided in the case of Dibble 
 vs. Hutton, (1 Day, 221,) that the English chancery practice 
 which allowed the wife to hold separate property without the 
 intervention of a trustee, u ought not to be engrafted into our 
 chancery system." This case arose in reference to a gift from 
 husband to wife, and exceptions to its sweeping dicta were soon 
 allowed ; but the chief point in issue was deemed settled law. 
 Even so late as 1843, in a similar case, Chief Justice Church 
 expresses his approval of the decision of the court in Dibble vs. 
 Hutton, in the most emphatic terms.t Thirteen years later, in 
 1856, the legislature having in the meantime interfered with 
 
 * Wintnn vs. Barnum, 19 Conn., 175, citing English cases with approval. Morgan vs 
 Thames Bank, 14 Conn , 99. Clancy ; s Rights of Married Women, 353. 
 
 t Stats., 1S69, page 340. Property given by the husband to the separate use of the 
 wife after marriage is undoubtedly liable to attachment for his debts, and it would seem 
 doubtful whether in case of separate personal property coming to the wife from any 
 other source, a creditor, entitled to an attachment under the 20th section of our statute 
 v Rev. Stats., 304) would be affected by the wife's merely equitable separate interest. See 
 Winton vs. Barnum, 19 Conn., 175. 
 
 + " The court there seemed to fear, tbat the innovations which courts of equity in 
 England were making upon the sacred unity of the persons of husband and wife, might, 
 as manners should lead the law, and law the manners, invade our own jurisprudence ; 
 and against such an event they intended to protect us. If more loose or liberal views 
 of the nature and legal effect of the marriage relation have been entertained in later 
 times, either by the legislature or the public, until they shall be made to bear upon the 
 courts by some definite legislative act, we must abide by the rules of the common law, 
 which were, without doubt, recognized by all as long ago as the time of the transaction 
 in question.'- Fourth Society vs. Mather, 15 Conn., 599. 
 
28 
 
 THE WIFE'S PROPERTY. 
 
 various acts for the protection of the property of married wo- 
 men, and the English equity rule having been sanctioned in 
 most States and adopted in our own, our Supreme Court over- 
 ruled the old case of Dibble vs. Button ; * but it is not a little 
 amusing to find the court, in the same decision, deprecating as 
 dangerous innovations statutes now universally considered as 
 falling far short of the just rights of married women, f A series 
 of Connecticut decisions, commencing a few years before the 
 case of Riley vs. Riley, placed our law fully abreast of the 
 English chancery system in regard to the wife's right to hold 
 separate property. Unfortunately, our legislatures have never 
 kept pace with the increasing liberality of our courts in that 
 direction. The General Assembly of 1850, indeed, seemed 
 inclined to follow the equity rather than the common law theory 
 regarding the property of married women, and a few provisions 
 of comparatively slight importance, made by that legislature, 
 still remain on the statute book ; but the general tendency has 
 been heavily the other way ; and the equity system of separate 
 property rights for married women has never been materially 
 extended by our legislature. 
 
 Ill — The interest of the survivor, on tite death 
 
 OF HUSBAND OR "WIFE, IN THEIR RESPECTIVE ESTATES. 
 
 In case of the death of the wife, the husband continues in 
 possession of her real estate during his life, provided living 
 children have ever been born of the marriage, whether they 
 survive or not. This interest is known in law as the husband's 
 estate by curtesy, and he will have that right even in land held 
 for the separate use of the wife. By our statute the husband 
 is also entitled to the use of all his wife's personal property 
 during his life, excepting her separate personal estate. % These 
 rights of the husband cannot be affected by any action of the 
 wife. She may, indeed, make a will, but it will only affect the 
 reversion of her estate after her husband's life interest has 
 ended. 
 
 * Riley vs. Riley, 25 Conn., 164. '* That case," says Judge Ells-worth, " is an anomaly 
 in the law ; and its doctrine is not at this time, nor was it then, altogether satisfactory 
 to the profession . and further it has been so materially encroached upon and modified 
 by more recent decisions of this court, and more especially assailed by the wide spread 
 sentiment of the community and the legislation of this and other states, that the doc- 
 trine of the case is viewed as an illiberal and obsolete relic of the ancient iaw of baron 
 and feme." 1 
 
 I " Whether the statute law has not. in its desire to protect the property of the wife 
 as if it was all to be to her ultimate sole and exclusive use, carried the doctrine too far 
 and given to the wife too much individuality, we will not enquire : experience will be 
 our best instructor.*' Do., 165. + Baldwin vs. Curter, 17 Conn., 208. 
 
THE WIFE'S PROPERTY. 29 
 
 The wife, on the other hand, only receives the use of a third 
 of her deceased husband's real estate, and not even that, unless 
 she was living with him at the time of his death, or absent for 
 legal cause. This right is called the widow's estate in dower. 
 In England, and in nearly all the States of this Union, this 
 right is secured by allowing the widow dower in all the real 
 property her husband owned at any time during marriage, 
 unless she has joined him in deeding it away. By a harsh 
 peculiarity of Connecticut law, she is only entitled here to 
 dower in the real estate of which he died possessed ; so that he 
 has only to convert his real property into personal during his 
 lifetime, or to make final disposition of it by deed instead of by 
 will, reserving a life use of it, to cut off her right altogether. * 
 The widow is entirely dependent on the good will of the hus- 
 band for whatever she receives from his estate beyond her 
 dower. If he leaves no will, she becomes heir to one-third, or, 
 if he leave no lineal descendants, to one-half of his personal 
 property. The law breaks over its usual, sound policy, to allow 
 the husband to place a singular restriction on her future mode 
 of life. Ordinarily, conditions foi the restraint of marriage 
 attached to gifts, or contained in agreements, are held to be void, 
 as contrary to public policy. A husband, however, may leave 
 property to his widow with a condition forbidding her re-mar- 
 riage attached ; and Judge Daggett justifies this extremely 
 common meanness on the part of the husband in the following 
 curious train of reasoning (italics ours) : 
 
 ft It would seem very reasonable, that a man leaving a widow 
 with seven children, as in the present case case, should be per- 
 mitted to encourage her, by suitable provision in his will, to 
 remain single, and not subject his own offspring to the probable 
 evils of a step- father, to waste her substance, and thereby render 
 her less able to support and educate them." f 
 
 If the normal condition of woman is that of dependence on 
 man, is not the forcing independence upon her, when she has 
 not only herself but seven children to support, a rather' poor 
 style of "encouragement?" A widower with seven children 
 soon begins to look out for, and his friends to suggest, another 
 wife, to take care of those children and stop " the waste of his 
 
 * In the case of Stewart vs. Stewart, a man executed a deed conveying all hia real 
 estate to his children, and put it into the hands of a third person, to" be delivered to 
 them on his death. On the happening of that event, about two years afterward, the 
 deed was delivered, and it was decided that it cut off the widow's dower. 5 Conn., 317. 
 
 t Phillips vs. Medbury, 7 Conn., 576. 
 
80 
 
 THE WIFE'S PROPERTY. 
 
 substance." Now if the male is the natural " bread-winner" for 
 both sexes, how happens it that a step-mother is such a nice 
 thing to have, and a step-father such a nuisance, in a bereaved 
 family ? 
 
 The harshness of the common law toward married women, 
 and the injustice of its provisions regarding their property, are 
 universally conceded. The modern legislation of Connecticut 
 on that subject is indeed an improvement, in that it does recog- 
 nize the principle that a married woman may have property 
 rights ; but, as a system, it is irredeemably vicious, from the 
 fact that it is based on the common law theory of dependence. 
 Connecticut is to-day practically behind England in that regard. 
 The wealthier classes in that country have not only contrived 
 the semi-independence of the separate property system, but 
 they take full advantage of that system. Here, the long oppo- 
 sition of our courts, and the continued neglect of our legislature, 
 have prevented it from ever taking root in the habits of society. 
 Other States of the Union, improving upon the old equity sys- 
 tem, have granted their married women an independent control 
 of their property far exceeding that conceded in England, yet 
 we hear no complaint of its practical workings. Can it be 
 longer denied that reform took a wrong direction, with us, in 
 1849 ? Having two existing models before us — that of the old 
 common law, based on dependence, and that of the equity law 
 with its underlying principle of independence — we chose the 
 worse. Our want of familiarity with the latter and better 
 system easily accounts for our mistake ; but, in view of the 
 great progress society and legislation have since been making, 
 our continuance in that error is inexcusable. 
 
 Aside from the fundamental defect at the root of existing 
 legislation there are many serious faults of detail. While con- 
 tinuing the wife's dependence, the present law professes to offer 
 her protection ; but it turns out, on examination, that the pro- 
 tection offered is of the most imperfect description. No trustee, 
 executor, parent, or guardian, can take possession of the prop- 
 erty of his trust without first executing a bond to secure the 
 faithful performance of his duty, and then filing in court an 
 exact inventory of the property received. The husband, how- 
 ever, though named " trustee" in the statute, takes the property 
 of his wife on marriage, without giving any bond to secure its 
 safe custody, or returning any inventory to show its amount. 
 
THE WIFE'S PROPERTY. 
 
 31 
 
 Starting in married life without any security for her husband's 
 performance of his trust, the wife can only attain such security 
 through the subsequent, hostile proceeding of a petition against 
 him in court — a mode of legal defence excellently calculated to 
 " shut the stable door after the horse is stolen," or to begin a 
 family quarrel which may only end in the divorce court. The 
 evil effect of giving the husband a life estate in the wife's prop- 
 erty, instead of a true trusteeship, is forcibly set forth by Mr. 
 Hooker : 
 
 " Whatever the husband by a parsimonious support of his 
 family could save out of the income of her property would of 
 course be his own. and he could thus by degrees be laying up a 
 private property for himself. There is, therefore, a constant 
 temptation, if the husband is selfish or meanly inclined, to be 
 stingy in the expenditure of the income for his family so that 
 he may be making a fortune for himself. Hardly any con- 
 trivance of the law could have been better adapted to create a 
 state of irritation between the husband and the wife. She is 
 treated by the law as still owning her property while she can 
 receive only such benefirof it as her husband, at his own dis- 
 cretion, and without regard to her wishes, may choose to give 
 her. 
 
 " No one can fail to see the injustice of the law, and I believe 
 that that injustice is felt more by the women who suffer it than 
 the really harsher provisions of the common law Avhich gave 
 the whole property absolutely to the husband, and did not delude 
 and tantalize the wife with the semblance of rights." 
 
 So too in the statute provisions regarding the re-investment 
 of her property, the husband has been given the most absurd 
 latitude for over-reaching the wife he holds in tutelage. Although 
 the husband's interest in the wife's real estate is carefully ex- 
 empted from attachment in suits against him, he still has the 
 right to deed it to a stranger for the term of his natural life. In 
 fact, much greater care is taken to protect the wife's property 
 against the husband's debts, than against the husband him- 
 self; and it is not surprising that, practically, the present law 
 cheats the married man's creditors oftener than it protects 
 his wife. 
 
 No argument can be needed to demonstrate the atrocious 
 injustice of our present law of succession between husband and 
 wife. Not only does the surviving husband take three times 
 H3 much as the surviving wife, but the former holds his 
 
82 
 
 THE WIFE'S PROPERTY. 
 
 interest securely, whereas most, in fact all, of the widow's 
 share is defeasible at the option of the husband, and often 
 ta< rfT ed with a degrading prohibition of re-marriage. The com- 
 mon law presents a very humiliating contrast in that, as in 
 most respects regarding marriage, with the corresponding 
 branch of the jurisprudence of Continental Europe. Just as 
 every traveler observes the selfish brutality of the English as 
 compared with the French or German husband of the lower 
 class, the lawyer cannot but be struck with the harshness of 
 the common law (intensified as it is in Connecticut by our 
 peculiar law of dower) as compared with the Continental system 
 of community of profits between husband and wife. The Anglo- 
 American has a sovereign contempt for everything Spanish- 
 American. Nevertheless we must look to some of our States 
 whose law of marriage was derived from that of Spain for the 
 only just and equal rule of succession between husband and, 
 wife to be found in this country. In those States, though their 
 laws differ considerably in detail, the fundamental idea is that 
 of the settlement of the affairs of a business firm, upon the 
 death of one of the partners. The capital originally con- 
 tributed to the general stock by the respective parties goes 
 back to the one, or to the heirs of the one, from whence it 
 came. Unless otherwise provided by agreement before mar- 
 riage, the husband has no preference over the wife in the 
 remainder of the estate, called the acquests, and consisting of 
 property acquired during the marriage from the earnings of 
 the joint labor or capital of husband and wife. This property 
 is treated as the profits of a partnership between equals, and 
 not, as at common law, as the sole estate of a male superior. 
 We look in vain through the various tinkering statutes of 
 States settled from Anglo-Saxon sources to find any such fair 
 and frank recognition of the wife's equal services with the 
 husband in accumulating an estate. The bulk of the accumu- 
 lated property in Connecticut is acquired, not hereditary ; Con- 
 necticut wives have done their full share towards its acquisition; 
 yet they are given no legal interest in such acquisitions what- 
 soever. That despotic, Catholic Spain has given us a lesson 
 of liberality, sufficiently characterizes the condition of our 
 present law. 
 
EVIL RESULTS OF THE WIFE'S DEPENDENCE. 
 
 The existing law affords the tyrannical husband every oppor- 
 tunity for oppression ; but although public opinion has not yet 
 learned to distrust all forms of dependence, it does hate down- 
 right cruelty. Hence the chief practical evils of our law take 
 the form of repression rather than that of oppression, — of a 
 denial to the wife of that freedom of development which is as 
 necessary to the formation of the true woman as to the forma- 
 tion of the true man. 
 
 With most women the natural dependence of minority is 
 continued by want of suitable employment till marriage. Then 
 the great majority of our married women become something 
 more than self-supporting; they contribute their full share to 
 the maintenance of a family, and to the accumulation of an 
 estate. A few, of the class which society has relieved of all 
 domestic service without substituting any worthy employment 
 in its place, are justly chargeable with frivolity, extravagance 
 and incompetency. It is chiefly from observation of this class 
 that conservative writers draw their hasty conclusion of woman's 
 natural dependence ; but the mass of our married women are 
 of no such stamp ; and, in general, the Connecticut wife labors 
 as hard as, and more continuously than, the Connecticut hus- 
 band. It is a notorious fact that she is frequently broken down 
 by hard labor ; he, seldom. On what principle then is she 
 deprived of full legal equality with her husband? The just rule 
 of all free society recognizes independence as the reward of 
 self-support ; but no sooner has the Connecticut woman, by her 
 services as a wife, earned her freedom, than the Law steps in 
 and rewards her with servitude. Then dependence has its 
 unavoidable effect upon her. The natural capacities of the 
 young wife, who is often the superior of her husband in intellect 
 and culture, never develop. As responsibilities increase, his 
 judgment strengthens and his views widen. Her acquirements, 
 on the other hand, wither from disuse, her judgment is weak- 
 ened and her views are narrowed by ceaseless attendance to a 
 routine of petty detail, and by habits of reliance on the worldly 
 
 ♦ 
 
34 RESULTS OF THE WIFE'S DEPENDENCE. 
 
 wisdom of her spouse and on the spiritual wisdom of her pastor. 
 She inconsiderately adopts and intensifies her husband'.; political 
 and social hatreds; and, as the married life progresses, the 
 legal inferiority grows into a real inferiority. In cases of 
 peculiar hardship, the wife's temper dulls into that of a drudge, 
 or sharpens into that of a scold ; she submits servilely, or revolts 
 noisily and unreasonably, after the manner of all subjects under 
 all despotic rule. Thus, Independence makes the man; De- 
 pendence, the woman ; and the,]e>ult is charged upon Nature ! 
 
 In the same proportion that the present legal marriage 
 relation tends to develop the vices of subjection in the wife, it 
 tends to develop the vices of dom'nation in the husband. Just 
 as Louis XIV was the State under the old French law, the 
 husband is the Family undo" ours. This monstrous departure 
 from the fundamental principle ~. free society is justified on ihe 
 theory that the husband's authority is fo tempered by affection 
 as to escape the usual danger of abu e. So far as the marital 
 rule is oppressive, such is generally the case ; but its repressive 
 influence cannot be thus modified. No amount of love and 
 aftec ion on the part of the jailor could make imprisonment a 
 condhion favorable to human development. No amount of love 
 1 and affection on the part of the husband can arrest the evil 
 efFect of dependence upon the wife. It is the fundamental vice 
 of all despotic relations that they pervert the powers that are 
 needed for the individual development of the inferior, to minis- 
 ter to the vanity or the sellishness of the superior. AVe repub- 
 licans find it difficult to understand how Stuarts and Bourbons 
 could have been educated into believing their personal interests 
 and prejudices of more importance than the welfare of nations ; 
 but if some wives have not made as great egotists of their hus- 
 bands, it is not the fault of their system. The prince by divine 
 right is only worse than the husband by divine right because 
 his subjects are more numerous, and by sharp competition 
 arrive at a higher degree of servility. The feudal court of the 
 Family is small ; its lord learns modesty in daily intercourse 
 with equals, outside; but its constitut'on i- as evil, its story of 
 wTong as disgraceful, and the publication of that story as 
 seve ely repressed, as in those grander despotisms it is part of 
 our ed i< ation to hate. 
 
 Another evil result of our present law arises from the fact 
 tha f , by forcing the wife to give the husband more than he has 
 a moral right to ask, it tends to produce that ingratitude on his 
 part, and that disappointment 0:1 hers, which are the usua 
 
 « 
 
RESULTS OF THE WIFE'S DEPENDENCE. 85 
 
 penalty of over-generosity. Love often has most unaccountable 
 beginnings, but its continuance is usually dependent upon 
 esteem and respect. Where the law gives not only the wife's 
 person but her property and her children unre-ervedly into the 
 hands of the husband, such is the frailty of human nature that 
 he is extremely apt to undervalue that for which he has not 
 paid the full price. Failing in due gratitude, he also fails in 
 due esteem and respect, and so the proverbial devotion of the 
 lover is quickly succeeded by the proverbial indifference of the 
 husband. Upon this rock the happiness of many a marriage is 
 wrecked at the outset. Nor can we wonder, when the unoffend- 
 ing wife so often suffers that cruel humiliation which is the 
 notorious lot of the mistress, and finds that by reserving nothing 
 she lias not only earned ingratitude, but turned love into 
 contempt. 
 
 If such are not, in general, the evil results of marriage, it is 
 because the law is practically repudiated, because the husband 
 has wisely conceded to the wife the true relation of an equal 
 instead of placing her in the legal relation of an inferior. Such 
 is the wholesome tendency of our times ; but the husbands who 
 do not make a merit of their concessions, and demand occasional 
 obedience, are probably very few. 
 
 Tn no other domain is the evil effect of woman's dependence 
 more severely felt than in that of morality. Personal pu«rity is 
 the unquestioned attribute of the American female ; but not of 
 the American male. Still, license does not often assume with 
 us its vilest shape of libertinism. That species of vice, indeed, 
 is punished with a savageness peculiar to ours, of all civilized 
 nations. A wise morality, therefore, will hardly concern itself 
 with the virtue of woman, but with the vice of man. The 
 " social evil," as it is termed, is the one growing crime against 
 chastity, and the prevalence of that crime is to be directly 
 traced to the dependence of woman. In the first place, this 
 vice is most common among those classes in which marriage is 
 to the female a real as well as a legal dependence. The farmer, 
 laborer, and artisan, are not the chief sinners in this regard ; 
 but rather business and professional men, clerks, &c , — in gen- 
 eral, the classes which earn a bare livelihood in our cities. The 
 chief inducements to this vice are, single life or late marriage ; 
 scarcity of female employment ; and the wife's powerlessness 
 to enforce the prime condition of the marriage contract. 
 
 It is a mi take to suppose that men often remain single, or 
 
36 RESULTS Of THE WIFE'S DEPENDENCE. 
 
 marry late, from choice. To many, marriage is simply an 
 impossibility ; they cannot afford the double or triple expense 
 of living it necessitates. In compelling such men to unwilling 
 celibacy, society ensures their moral " ruin." The one possible 
 remedy for this evil is through some mode of enabling the wife 
 to contribute by remunerative labor to the support of the 
 family — through the education of girls to business, to professions, 
 or to trades, with the expectation that they will continue in such 
 employment after marriage. This will also remove the chief 
 stumbling block in the way of the single woman's doing first- 
 class work — the expectation that with marriage such work must 
 be abandoned for the comparatively unremimerative duties of 
 housekeeper, seamstress, and nurse. The introduction of ma- 
 chinery has narrowed the domestic sphere, while the progress 
 of refinement has increased its expense. Without here consid- 
 ering the question whether the province of " wife and mother," 
 especially that parental duty which the " husband and father" 
 so cheerfully resigns, affords sufficient scope for her natural 
 powers, it is evident that the want of economy of the present 
 system is fast proving its ruin. Unless the co-operative kitchen, 
 the co-operative sewing establishment, the co-operative nursery, 
 or some conveniences of the sort, enable the educated wife to 
 earn the high wages of skilled or intellectual labor, infrequency 
 of marriage, with its attendant vice, will prove an insoluble 
 social problem. 
 
 The statistics of prostitution show that want of employment 
 at living rates furnishes a large, if not the largest, female con- 
 tingent to this species of vice. With freedom of action, and 
 with an unlimited sphere of employment, would vanish this 
 shameful necessity — the darkest blot on chri-tian civilization. 
 
 From the fact that eligible husbands, especially in the upper 
 walks of life, are fewer than eligible wives; from the fact that 
 the husband is expected to be the ch ; ef support of the family ; 
 and from the still more controlling fact that celibacy does not 
 leave man's life so purposeless as it does woman's, it results 
 that the parties tc the marriage relation do not start upon any- 
 thing like an equal footing. The wife is in no condition to 
 demand those terms to which equality would have entitled her. 
 One terrible fundamental unfairness is particularly manifest : 
 that personal purity which is a pre-requisite in her case is not 
 so in that of the husband. The monstrous inequality with 
 which marriage begins, increases with its continuance. Infidel- 
 ity on the part of the wife brings death to her lover, wor e than 
 
RESULTS OF THE WIFE'S DEPENDENCE. 37 
 
 death to herself ; but this is no enforcement of chastity — it is 
 only l lie punishment of a trespass on vested rights, to which the 
 most licentious husband is entitled equally with the most 
 virtuous. So complete, on the other hand, is the wife's depend- 
 ence, that there grow up habits of subserviency which unfit her 
 for "vindicating the purity of the marriage relation." Implicit 
 obedience remains a duty till the utmost limit of forbearance 
 is readied. Then ehe is expected to throw off the habits of 
 years, and to fight a great battle, under every disadvantage, 
 against one to whom she has been taught to look up as her 
 " head, even as Christ is the head of the Church." It is not 
 her fault that under such circumstances she fails to do her duty 
 oftener than she * performs it. Society afford s the husband 
 every opportunity of hiding his disgrace, it even justifies the 
 wife in shutting her ey^s to it. while it goads him on to murder 
 in revenge for hers. This most degrading result of the wife's 
 dependence also removes the greatest natural check on immo- 
 rality. Real independence, and sufficiency of employment, 
 would enable the wife to exact from the hu-band some approach 
 at least to the purity he requires of her. 
 
 One of the strongest proofs of the evils of our marriage law 
 is to be found in our divorce records. The uniformity with 
 which wives petition for separation in the proportion of two to 
 one, proves that their more frequent resort to that extreme 
 mea-ure results from some uniform pressure of necessity, and 
 not from accident. The following table is compiled from the 
 latest reports of our State Librarian : 
 
 
 Husband 
 
 
 Wife 
 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 petitioner 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 petitioner. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Total 
 
 1866 
 
 148* 
 
 36.4 
 
 259* 
 
 63.6 
 
 488 
 
 1867 
 
 122* 
 
 30.3 
 
 281* 
 
 69 7 
 
 459 
 
 1868 
 
 160 
 
 33.5 
 
 3 8 
 
 66.5 
 
 478 
 
 1869 
 
 164 
 
 33 4 
 
 327 
 
 66.6 
 
 491 
 
 
 594 
 
 33.4 
 
 11£5 
 
 66.6 
 
 1916 
 
 No one familiar with the law T of marriage will be surprised 
 at the foregoing exhibit. Where a husband has been guilty of 
 u such misconduct as permanently destroys the happiness" of 
 his wife, " and defeats the purposes of the marriage relation,'' 
 her condition is simply intolerable. The well-meaning clergy- 
 men who are endeavoring to make the marriage relation perma 
 
 * Fairfield County not reported. 
 
38 RES ULTS OF THE WIFE'S DEPEXDEXCE. 
 
 nent should remember that it ought first to be made just. Tn 
 Christ's time, the law of divorce degraded the wife ; in our time 
 it is her only refuge from degradation. If Christian ministers' 
 will note this difference, and will follow the spirit instead of 
 " sticking (o the letter" of the divine law, they will pray for the 
 
 wife's legd emancipation rathe? than for her legal coercion 
 
 they will make divorces infrequent by making them unnecessary. 
 
 The arguments most usually urged in behalf of the existing 
 system of dependence are; that the wife's subjection is the 
 result of divine ordinance ; that dependence is the natural con- 
 dition of woman ; that even if the wife were the natural equal 
 of the husband, some headship of the family is a practical 
 necessity, and more properly devolves on the husband 
 
 The biblical argument in favor of woman's subjection has 
 been so thoroughly considered and fully answered in the first 
 tract of this series that further reply seems unnecessary. ' It is 
 sufficient to say that the same strict construction whica demands 
 female dependence would al<o justify polygamy and slavery, 
 would condemn Total Abstinence as contrary to divine example, 
 and would prescribe celibacy as a necessary condition to exalted 
 piety. 
 
 The argument that the dependence of woman is natural, is 
 simply a mistaken inference from the fact that it is usual. No 
 such inference is necessary, for the fact of dependence most 
 naturally follows from the long political predominance of Force. 
 Political and social dependence is even now the general lot of 
 man. Nevertheless, independence ju-tly clams the preference, 
 because it produces a superior type of manhood. It is equally 
 incontestable that independence, as far as it has been permitted, 
 produces a superior type of womanhood. From the Tuikish 
 woman up to the American woman the sex rises steadilv in 
 esteem as it rises towards independence. It is a very common 
 assumption that the superior re-pect with which the American 
 woman is treated, is owing to the superior politeness of the 
 American man. The more natural explanation, that our w^omen 
 are treated with more respejt because they deserve more 
 respect, does not readily Occur to male conceit. Hence men 
 mil into the great error of supposing that the respect they pay 
 woman is a favor, not a debt. The simple fact is that the 
 American woman has learned the lesson of greater freedom in 
 greater self-respect — to be surely followed by the increased 
 respect of others, whether willing or not. Experience proves 
 
RESULTS OF THE WIFE'S DEPENDENCE. 39 
 
 that, from queen to seamstress, woman meets responsibility 
 bravely, and, for the mo-t part, successfully. It seems to prove, 
 even, that sudden and heavy responsibilities do not break down 
 untried women as they break down untried men. Least of all 
 does experience justify the monstrous slander that female purity 
 is a creature of male protection, which will be saeritieed if that 
 protection is withdrawn! When vice claims to be the natural 
 custodian of virtue we may reasonably suspect an improp t 
 motive; and, in this case, the motive is sufficiently obvious ; 
 chastity is fche natural foundation on which the marriage rela- 
 tion is built, the pre-requisite to its formation, and the condition 
 ot its continuance ; woman, of her own free will, fully complies 
 with that tenn of the contract; man bullies or cheats her out 
 of the performance of the condition on his part, and, to hide his 
 default, avers that her purity is only the result of his compul- 
 sion. Even pure men often unthinkingly repeat this brazen 
 assumption of vice. 
 
 Where neither religion nor nature demand the wife's subjec- 
 tion, justice will not readily concede it as a necessity of state. 
 The argument that equal right must be sacrificed to secure 
 harmony, is not only the stalest plea of despotism, but incon- 
 sistent with the American type of government. Our State and 
 National constitutions divide supreme rule between three, co- 
 ordinate departments, with the avowed purpose of avoiding 
 that very unity of power which is demanded for the husband 
 in the family. No reason can be shown for giving the husband 
 sole control of matters of ^uch prime importance as residence, 
 social intercourse, and mode of life. Those are arranged, in 
 the first in-tance, by mutual agreement, and should not 2>e 
 changed except upon common consent. If either deserves tile 
 absolute control of the children while young, it is the wife; 
 when older, any exercise of authority by one parent, against 
 tlrj known wishes of the other, cannot but be a* mischievous as 
 it is unjust. Above all, when the time has come for pushing 
 the yoimg birds out of their family nest, disregard of the wishes 
 of the mother is an inexcusable cruelty. Nor is there any 
 reason why the wife should not have that legal interest both in 
 the control and in the proceeds of the marriage partnership to 
 which her unremitting toil entitles her. Even in those classes 
 where the wife's burden is lighter, it is unwise to lessen her 
 interest ; .were the husband obliged to yield to the wife the 
 confidence of a real partnership, there would be fewer cases of 
 thoughtless extravagance on one side, and of selfish personal 
 
40 RESULTS OF THE WIFE'S DEPENDENCE. 
 
 expenditure m he other. In no other biVsin'ess/firm is a single 
 partner giver. ~u.<olme control of the common property and 
 considering also its additional bond of affecriofi, that feature of 
 the marria e partnership must be as unneceacary as it is unusual. 
 
 If the foregoing- views arc correct, and tlio fundamental principle of the 
 present marriage relation is wrong, the plain remedy lies in the substitu- 
 tion cf independence for dependence, f>f equality for subjection. The wife 
 should he given entire control of her own person, joint authority with her 
 husband over the children they nurture, and over the property "they accu- 
 mulate. As has been before observed, reform in this country has taken 
 the shape of an extension of the English separate property system. Vast 
 improvement as that system is on the common law, it offers no such com- 
 plete remedy of existing evils as is generally assumed. The married 
 woman of property has that property reserved from marital authority ; 
 but receives no further relief. The married woman who has no property 
 remains bound, as of old, to labor for her husband for board wages. If 
 the marriage venture is successful, she is secured no share in his earnings ; 
 but if unsuccessful, she endures an equal share of his poverty ; and, should 
 he die, she will be confined in the poor-house if she fails to support his 
 children. A system which leaves so large a portion of its work undone 
 can hardly l>e the end of reform ! 
 
 The enlargement of woman's sphere of employment so as to admit of 
 the free development of her powers in every practicable direction, is a eon- 
 ceded necessity of the times. The only important hindrance the law offers 
 t > the single woman's progress, is that of disfranchisement; but with mar- 
 riage come crippling legal disabilities which necessarily terminate any 
 career of independence she may have begun. How far marriage is a nat- 
 ural disqualification for all but domestic employment, can never be known 
 as long as the law interferes so roughly. A wise legislation would sweep 
 away all existing barriers ; would concede to the wife the independence 
 she earns, in die Family ; and would trust nature to limit her sphere of 
 usefulness, outside of it Then, at last, being no longer a bond-woman, 
 the wife may compete with the free man, and may rise to her natural posi- 
 tion as leader of that inexperienced minority of her sex who are struggling 
 for profitable employment. 
 
 The grosser e vils of our marriage law cannot long escape correction ; 
 but experience hardly justifies the expectation that legislatures composed 
 mainly of husbands, and representing only males, will ever abandon the 
 system of dependence by which they seem to pront. There is, indeed, no 
 active intention to oppress ; on the contrary, individual cases of hardship 
 meet with ready sympathy and relief; but the vis inertia*, of selfishness has 
 hitherto offered an insuperable obstacle tc> u thorough redress of the fun- 
 damental wrong,