"Our Illinois Legislature has this winter (1860-61) enacted a law, allowing women (married women) all their property,—real, personal, mixed,—free from all debt, contract, obligation, and control of their husbands. This law puts man and woman in the same position, as far as property-rights and their remedies are concerned. This is right,—just as it should be. For my life, I cannot see why there should be any distinction between men and women, when we speak of rights under government. A woman's rights are identical with a man's. Where he is limited, she should be; where she is limited, he should be."
In Rhode Island, the civil existence of the husband and wife is but one; and, though the letter of the law considers her property acquired by trade or inheritance as technically her own, still it is no longer under her single control. If, as a wife, she sells merchandise, the buyer becomes a debtor to her husband and herself. If she makes a purchase, her note is good for nothing, unless her husband's signature is affixed to it. He can dispose of the whole of her personal estate, unless the buyer has been previously notified by her, in writing, that the property is exclusively her own. Her real estate the husband cannot sell: but even of this she cannot dispose by will; so, perhaps, it might as well be sold. The absurdity becomes ludicrous, when we remember that the law makes her competent to devise any number of millions, so long as it is invested in bank-stock or merchandise.
In the State of Vermont, there are three peculiar provisions:—
First, If the husband abscond without making sufficient provision for his wife, she is permitted (!) to use her own property and earnings, or the earnings of her minor children, to secure a support. This permission indicates the tender mercies of the common law, and reminds us of the Helvetian peasant-woman.
Second, She is exempted from personal restraint during the pendency of a divorce suit.
Third, A mother and her illegitimate child may inherit from each other.
A married woman may devise her real estate, and it is exempt from attachment for the sole debts of her husband. She may have her husband's life insured, the insurance to be made payable to her or her children. If he should be put into the penitentiary, she may transact business as if she were a feme sole.
The laws of inheritance are liberal; and the common law prevails by statute, when not repugnant to any recorded statute.
In Connecticut, in 1855, all the real estate owned at the time of marriage, or subsequently inherited by the wife, rests absolutely in her. All her personal estate passes to her husband; but all that she may afterward receive remains in her right, her husband being only her legal trustee. Her earnings are subject to his trusteeship, and nothing more. She is the guardian of her own children; and the court always confirms this right, unless she is incapacitated. In case of divorce, the father is entitled to the children, unless objection is made. On the decease of the husband childless, one-half of his personal estate goes to the wife, and a life-interest in one-third of the real; or the whole, if it be needed for her support.
In New Hampshire, the common law prevails for the most part. What express enactments she passed in 1853 seem to refer rather to making the position of a deserted wife equivalent to that of a feme sole than any thing else.
As regards Massachusetts, it is common to say that the legislation of 1855 leaves very little to be desired, beside the right of suffrage; but a keen eye still detects more than one shortcoming. The custody of the wife's person still vests in the husband.