The Woman's Journal, vol. 43, no. 5, February 3, 1912, p. 38

Boxes

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LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN

We have an unusual wealth of information from Georgia. First came in answers from an attorney-at-law of Macon, Mr. H. V. Napier, Jr. Then recently Mrs. J. J. Weaver of the Atlanta Law School, class of 1912, sent in answers. For the most part these are the same as Mr. Napier's. So Mr. Napier's answers are printed in full and only those answers of Mrs. Weaver are given which furnish some additional information of special interest or which differ from those first printed.

Mr. H. V. Napler's Answers

1. A wife after marriage owns her clothes and other personal property owned by her before marriage. 2. A wife owns her wages earned by her outside the home, but she cannot enforce payment for services performed in the home for husband or children. 3. A husband has no authority over his wife's real estate or the rental therefrom. 4. A wife may convey her separate property without her husband's consent.

5. The husband is liable for all family necessaries, no matter by whom ordered, and the wife can be chargeable for them only when the credit therefor has been expressly extended to her. 6. Our law does not secure for the wife any portion of the family income free from husbandly dictation.

7. The wife has no interest in property to which the title is in the husband, save that of dower and a year's support after the death of the husband. If the property accumulated by their jeint efforts is taken with the title in either the one or the other alone, such property belongs to the person in whose name the title is taken. 8. A husband has no other control over his wife's personal property or her liberty except that which comes from his general control over the family pocket-book.

9. The wife has dower interest in the husband's real estate, and in the event either of them die without children the survivor inherits the entire estate of the other. If the wife die, leaving a husband, child or children, her separate estate is divided equally between said husband and children, share and share alike, and if the husband die, leaving wife, child or children, besides dower and year's support, the wife shall take a child's part of the husband's estate, provided her part shall not be less than one-fifth of said estate. The father, if livins, shares a deceased child's estate equally with the brothers and sisters, and if the father be dead then the mother shares in the estate.

10. It is the duty of the husband to provide a reasonable, suitable home for his famly to be governed by the circumstances.

crime lfo1 tie Husosnd fove children dependent. 12. The statutory grounds for divorce are: (a) Intermarriage by persons within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity and affinity. (b) Mental incapacity at the time of marriage. (c) Impotency at the time of marriage. (d) Force, menaces, duress, or fraud, in obtaining the marriage. (e) Pregnancy of the wife at the time of the marriage, unknown to the husband. (f) Adultery in either of the parties after the marriage. (g) wilful and continued desertion by either of the parties for the term of three years. (h) The conviction of either party for an offense involving moral turpitude, and under which he or she is sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for the term of two years or longer. (The above are grounds for total divorce.) (1) Cruel treatment or habitu al intoxication by either party is a ground for total or partial divorce, as the jury trying the case may see fit to determine. (These grounds apply to both parties.) 13. A wife is not legally responst

THE WOMAN'S JOURNAL, FEBRUARY 3, 1912

in the children's earninss. 15. If reasonably necessary, a father is liable for some family expense for wife or child, if the expense is one of which he disapproves. 16. The father has the right of custody and control over children until they are twenty-one years of age. 17. No father can will away from the mother the custody of an unborn child. 18. Husband and wife are not competent to testify in suits where the other is a party, save and except in criminal proceedings against one or the other, but the wife is competent to testify against the husband when he is charged with wife-whipping and desertion of his children. 19. As to her separate estate she is absolutely free from her husband's control, and has been since what is known as the Married Woman's Acts of 1866. 20. Public schools up to the State University are open to all, but ladies make up the greater portion of the educational staff. 21. Women are employed in the higher positions in these schools. 22. The authority of the schools fixed the matter of salary. They are not subject to State laws. 23. You had better ask the State school commissioner about county and State superintendents being women. 24. Women don't vote in this State. 25. Refer you to the schools as to whether women are admitted to professional schools. 26. Women are not admitted to the bar. 27. Women are not eligible to elective offices. 28. No civil service in Georgia. 29. Refer you to the institutions as to whether women are on the charitable boards. 30. Refer yeu to the Prison Commission of Georgia as to whether women matrons or physicians must be in custody of women and girls. 31. Women physicians are not received as jurors in insanity cases. 32. Night work of women and girls is not prohibited. 33. The law provides sanitary resulations for factories and shops where women are employed. 34. Ten years is the age of consent. 35. The punishment for rape is death, unless the jury trying the case shall recommend the prisoner to mercy, and in that event he shall be sentenced to serve not less than one year nor longer than twenty years in the penitentiary, in the discretion of the judge passing sentence. 36. $1.000, six months in jail or twelve months on the chain gans, or any part thereof, in the discretion of the judge passing sentence, is the punishment for bastardy. 37. Seduction is a felony. 38. This question goes into the realm of speculation and opinion, and cannot be answered by an ordinary person. 39. The same as 36. 40. The only people who cannot become eligible for franchise are women. 41. Women's taxpaying is not recognized as a qualifcation for votins. 42. Women may vote for no off cers. 43. The Legislature has no power to extend the suffrage to women. 44. A constitutional amendment must be passed before women may vote for any officer.

Additional information From MWrs. J. J. Weaver

21. Women are not employed in the higher positions in these schools.

22. The salaries paid women do not average as high as those paia the men. In some cases they only receive one-third as much. 23. There are no women county or State superintendents of schools. 25. Professional schools are open to women. 26. The question of woman's admission to the bar was before the Legislature of 1911. The eloquent opposition was because “Home is the place for women." The bill was defeated. 27. Women may hold no elective office. There is a question whether the law cited below is constitutional, as it was never submitted to a vote of the people. Sec. 2167. Civil Cede of Georgia

“Females: Females are not entitled to the privilege of the elective franchise, nor can they hold any civil office, or perform any civil function unless specially authorized by law, nor are they required to discharge any military, jury, police, patrol or road duty; Provided, nothing contained herein shall prevent a woman, a resident of this State four years, and who has attained the age of twenty-one years, from being eligible to the office of State librarian by appointment of the Governor, under the provisions of force regulating the appeintments by the Governor. A woman is eligible to the office of assistant physician of the Georgia State Sanitarium; and females, resident of the county for four years preceding, may be appointed to hold any office in the children's courts." Acts 1896, p 40; 1897, p 110; 1898, p 1107; Penal Code, Sec. $99.

29. No women are on boards of control of State charitable institutions. 30. No law that women matrons, physicians or nurses be employed in public institutions having the custody of women and girls.

33. The Legislature enacted a tenhour law July 27, 1911. 36 and 39. No law defining bastardy and pandering as such. 37. Seduction is a crime with punishment at labor in the penitentiary for not less than two nor more than twenty years. Prosecution may be stopped by marriage of the parties. 40. Women and aliens and disfranchised negroes also can not vote at “white primaries."

PURSUING SUFFRAGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES

ampaigning in Wisconsin in ley Weather — interest Unexpectedly Great—People Travel Many Miles to Attend Suffrage Meetings

After repeated requests frem our chairmen in different parts of the State that they might be favored with speakers, the president of the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association, with Miss Harriet Grim of Chicago and Mrs. Edith Webster of North Milwaukee, set forth to hold a series of meetings for the appointment of committees to interview voters and otherwise prepare for the election in 1912.

Our interest in the cause was fairly put to the test when at starting the thermometer showed 18 below zero, and a brisk west wind blowing, and during the entire succeeding week the thermometer hovered between 20 and 30 below, and continued to fall until we reached the coldest point, at Sparta, on the 12th inst., where it was 52 below. But in spite of this weather our afternoon reception at the home of Mrs. Hemstock, in Sparta, was attended by some 50 or 60 finelooking women who seemed sreatly interested in the cause, and in the evening the school hall was well filled. At other places we found the people equally interested. At Randolph, where the weather was intensely cold and a bitter wind blowing, one woman walked a mile to attend an after noon meeting held as a supplement to the meeting of the previous evening. Fortunately, althougsh so very cold, there was a bright moon and the evenings were bright and beautiful. When we left Randolph, having to wait at the station some time for a delayed train, we were entertained by music, and at last when the train pulled out we left a company of youns Welshmen whistling, singing and dancing on the depot platform. The Welshmen will all vote for woman suffrage.

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We have held meetings almost continuously since we started on Jan. 2, and usually with geod success. Even in places where the cause has recelved very little attention, the people have been responsive and ready to receive the message. As an instance of this, the other evening at Mondovi, the county seat of Buffalo County, people rode fifteen miles to attend the meeting, and expressed themselves as feeling well repaid. It is useless for men to say that women do not want the ballot when they so fifteen miles on a bitter cold winter night to attend a suffrage meetins.

We find more interest in the cause than we expected, and the interest seems to be growing. Of course, we do not see the opposition. The opponents of woman suffrage have usually been a little shy about showing themselves, but we should make a mistake if we assumed that there are no opponents. No such beneficent measure was ever carried without arousing the

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Here in Menomonie, Dunn County, we are being handsomely entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Henry E. Knapp at their exquisite home. This is a place known as the seat of the Stout Manual Training School, and also of the fine building, the “Mabel Tainter Memorial The place has for many years been a center of free thought and progressive ideas. Here for a number of years lived and labored Professor Maxom, one of the truest and most cultured men Wisconsin has ever known. There are several institutions of learning here; Miss Grim will doubtless address some of them. She has been very successful in addressing Normal Schools, Civie Leagues, and other gatherings in the

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