A Short History of Women's Rights Part 25

POPULATION: Male 232,985; female 183,972.

HUSBAND AND WIFE: Wife controls own earnings. By registering as a sole trader, she can carry on business in her own name. Civil disabilities are same for husband and wife except as to voting and holding office. If husband or wife dies intestate, and there are no descendants living, survivor takes whole estate. If there is issue living, the widow receives one half of husband's real estate and one half of his personal property. The widower takes a life interest in all the wife's real estate, whether there are children or not and all her personal property absolutely if there are no descendants living; otherwise one half.

Husband and wife are equal guardians of children. Husband must provide.

DIVORCE: Absolute for impotency, adultery, conviction for felony, habitual drunkenness for one year, wilful desertion for one year, cruel treatment or indignities making life burdensome.

No limited divorce. Annulment if either party is one fourth negro or Mongolian blood.

LABOUR LAWS: No Sunday labour. No child under 14 shall work in factory, mill, mine, telegraph, telephone, or public messenger service; and no child under 14 shall be employed at all during school session.

Attendance at school compulsory between 8 and 14. Hours of work for children under 16 to be confined between 7 A.M. and 6 P.M. Seats must be provided for female employees. Ten hours a day the legal limit for female labour.

SUFFRAGE, POLITICAL CONDITION, INDUSTRIAL AND PROFESSIONAL STATUS: Women having property in school districts have school suffrage and may be elected school trustees. They may be notaries. 40 women in ministry, 15 dentists, 17 journalists, 8 lawyers, 82 doctors, 7 professors, 5 saloon keepers, 10 bankers, 18 commercial travellers, 7 carpenters, etc.

_Pennsylvania_

AGE OF LEGAL CONSENT: 16.

POPULATION: Male 3,204,541; female 3,097,574.

HUSBAND AND WIFE: Wife controls own earnings. Dower and curtesy prevail.

Wife cannot mortgage separate estate without husband's consent; cannot sue or be sued or contract without his consent; and in order to carry on business in her own name must secure special permission from the court.

Husband is legal guardian of children, and must provide.

DIVORCE: Absolute for impotence, bigamy, adultery, desertion for two years, cruelty or intolerable indignities, marriage within prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity, fraud, conviction for felony for more than two years, lunacy for ten years.

Limited divorce for desertion, turning wife out of doors, cruelty, adultery.

LABOUR LAWS: Seats must be provided for female employees. Employment of females in mines forbidden. Children under 18 may not engage in any mendicant occupations; those under 15 may not exhibit in any place where liquor is sold nor take part in any acrobatic or immoral vocation.

Sunday labour forbidden. No female may work in bakery or macaroni or other establishment more than twelve hours per day. Children must go to school between 8 and 16. No child under 16 may work in any anthracite coal mine. No child under 14 shall be employed in any establishment. One hour must be allowed for lunch. No employment bureau shall send any female to an immoral resort.

SUFFRAGE, POLITICAL CONDITION, INDUSTRIAL AND PROFESSIONAL STATUS: No suffrage. 290 women in ministry, 73 dentists, 125 journalists, 73 lawyers, 601 doctors, 38 professors, 183 saloon keepers, 17 bankers, 44 commercial travellers, 40 carpenters, etc.

_Rhode Island_

AGE OF LEGAL CONSENT: 16.

POPULATION: Male 210,516; female 218,040.

HUSBAND AND WIFE: Wife controls own earnings and separate estate, subject to husband's right to curtesy. Curtesy and dower both prevail.

Husband is legal guardian of children and must provide.

DIVORCE: Absolute or limited for marriages originally void by law, conviction for crime involving loss of civil status, when either party may be presumed to be naturally dead from absence, etc., impotence, adultery, desertion for any time at discretion of court, continued drunkenness, neglect to provide, any gross misbehaviour.

LABOUR LAWS: No child under 13 may be employed except during vacation.

No child under 15 may be employed unless he or she has school certificate. No child under 14 to work in factory. Hours of labour for children under 16 confined between 6 A.M. and 8 P.M. Seats must be provided for all female employees. No child under 16 shall be employed in any acrobatic, mendicant, dangerous, or immoral occupation. Hours for female labour confined to ten. Sunday labour forbidden.

SUFFRAGE, POLITICAL CONDITION, INDUSTRIAL AND PROFESSIONAL STATUS: No suffrage. 24 women in ministry, 5 dentists, 7 journalists, 3 lawyers, 56 doctors, 2 saloon keepers, 5 commercial travellers, 6 carpenters, etc.

_South Carolina_

AGE OF LEGAL CONSENT: 14.

POPULATION: Male 664,895; female 675,421.

HUSBAND AND WIFE: Wife controls own earnings and separate estate absolutely. Dower prevails, but not curtesy. Husband is legal guardian of children, and is required to provide, but law as it stands offers many loopholes.

DIVORCE: There are no divorce laws in South Carolina.

LABOUR LAWS: Seats must be provided for female employees. Sunday labour forbidden. No child under 12 to work in factory, mill, or textile establishment, except in cases of extreme poverty duly attested; all such labour to be confined between 6 A.M. and 8 P.M.

SUFFRAGE, POLITICAL CONDITION, INDUSTRIAL AND PROFESSIONAL STATUS: No suffrage. Women cannot be notaries. 17 women in ministry, 1 dentist, 6 journalists, 3 lawyers, 17 doctors, 13 professors, 3 saloon keepers, 2 commercial travellers, 13 carpenters, etc.

_South Dakota_

AGE OF LEGAL CONSENT: 16.

POPULATION: Male 216,164; female 185,406.

HUSBAND AND WIFE: Wife controls own earnings and controls separate estate. Joint real estate can be conveyed only by signature of both husband and wife, but husband can dispose of joint personal property without wife's consent. In order to control her separate property, wife must keep it recorded in the office of the county register. No dower and no curtesy. Survivor gets one half of estate, if there is one child or issue of child; otherwise one third; unless there are neither children nor kin, when survivor takes all. On the death of an unmarried child, father inherits all its property. If he is dead and there are no other children, mother succeeds; but if there are brothers and sisters, she inherits a child's share. Husband is guardian and must support; but if he is infirm, wife must do so.

DIVORCE: Absolute for adultery, extreme cruelty, wilful desertion or neglect or habitual intemperance for one year, conviction of felony.

No limited divorce.

Party guilty of adultery cannot marry any other, except the innocent party, until death of latter.

LABOUR LAWS: Sunday labour forbidden. No woman under 18 may labour more than ten hours a day. No child under 15 may work in mine, hotel, laundry, factory, elevator, bowling alley, or any place where liquor is sold. No child under 15 shall be employed at all while schools are in session.

SUFFRAGE, POLITICAL CONDITION, INDUSTRIAL AND PROFESSIONAL STATUS: Women can vote for school trustees. They may be notaries. 29 women in ministry, 3 dentists, 4 journalists, 12 lawyers, 24 doctors, 7 professors, 3 saloon keepers, 3 commercial travellers, etc.

_Tennessee_

AGE OF LEGAL CONSENT: 18.

POPULATION: Male 1,021,224; female 999,392.

HUSBAND AND WIFE: Husband controls wife's earnings, and wife can do nothing with her separate estate without his consent. Dower and curtesy prevail. Husband has right to all rents and profits of wife's estate. No law requires husband to provide. Husband is guardian of children.

DIVORCE: Absolute for impotence, bigamy, adultery, desertion for two years, conviction for felony, attempted murder, pregnancy of woman at time of marriage without knowledge of husband, habitual drunkenness.

Limited for wife only for cruel treatment by husband or intolerable indignities, and desertion or refusal to provide.

Party guilty of adultery cannot marry person with whom adultery has been committed during life of former partner.