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    126 ©N THE G&S9ITI&N- #F W$MEN"

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    • 4 Ik Directing Attention To Those Cond...

    Slie has no legal right to dispose by will of either personal or real propertywhether acquired before or after her marriageexcept by

    , , consent of her husband , and this consent , if given , niay be revoked by him any time between the time of her death and probate , or the

    proving of the will . Her personal property , clothes , jewels , money , plate , & c , become

    her husband's on her marriage , and he can use or alienate them at pleasure .

    Her chattels real , that is leases , & c ., become his if he reduce them into possession during his lifetime . Should he not do this they

    revert to her at his death , as he cannot alienate them from her by his will . Her interest In real property becomes his on her

    marriage . If she die without children the property goes to her heirs , but , from the birth of a living child , the husband holds

    possession until his death . A husband may hy will exclude his wife from , all right of dower

    in his real property and from all share in his personal estate , thus leaving her at his death entirely unprovided for .

    A wife has no legal power over her own children , and her husband may hy will deprive her of all share in the guardianship

    of both their property and persons . She has a limited power over infants under seven yearsbufc after that age her husband may

    , remove them entirely from her , permitting her only restricted and occasional intercourse with them .

    I have here enumerated the principal laws relating to women in this country . There arehowevervarious legal devices by which

    , , some of the most oppressive of them may be partially evaded . Still , as these expedients are expensive and complex in their

    nature , they can be little resorted to except by those possessed of some considerable property , and are wholly unavailable by

    women in the lower ranks of society . There is , at the present timea growing sense of the need for

    , improved legislation respecting women , and considerable attention has in various quarters been directed towards the subject , not without

    result in at least one important particular . A law has recently been passed providing that a woman deserted by her husband , and thus

    compelled to support herself and her children by her own exertions , may , by an order from a magistrateobtain protection for her

    , earnings against her husband , should he return and claim them . The Society for Promoting the Amendment of the Law has

    directed its attention to this important subject , and in its " Report of the Personal Laws Committee on the laws relating to the

    property of unmarried women , " gives the following as the head of a proposed new law of property : —

    First—The common law rules which make marriage a gift of all the woman ' s personal property to the husband to be repealed .

    Second—Power in married women to hold separate property in

    law , as they now may in equity .

    126 ©N The G&S9iti&N- #F W$Men"

    126 © N THE G _& S 9 ITI & N- # F W _$ MEN "

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Oct. 1, 1862, page 126, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01101862/page/54/