This year the annual sessions were changed to biennial.
In 1889 the petitions for Full Suffrage of Mrs. Elizabeth D. Bacon and others were indefinitely postponed. During the same session women were made eligible to hold the office of assistant town clerk, and to become members of ecclesiastical societies.
In 1891 a legal dispute as to the result of a gubernatorial election caused the former Governor to hold over, and all legislative business to be postponed for two years.
In 1893 the committee, after giving several hearings upon a bill asking Full Suffrage, substituted, with the consent of the State association, one for School Suffrage. Upon the third reading this passed the House, but the Senate referred it back to the committee as imperfect. There it would have remained but for the efforts of the Hartford Equal Rights Club. It finally passed the Senate and the House, was signed by Gov. Luzon B. Morris and became law. Several attempts have been made to repeal it but unsuccessfully.
In 1895 a bill providing for the right of women to vote for Presidential electors was reported unfavorably by the committee, the report being accepted. The same year a Municipal Suffrage Bill went to a third reading and was passed by the House, but failed in the Senate by unanimous vote.
In 1897 a bill conferring upon women the right to vote for Presidential electors was rejected after a third reading both in the House and Senate. Another was presented for the exemption of women from taxation, the committee reported, "Ought not to pass," and the report was accepted. A bill for Municipal Suffrage met the same fate. This year a bill was introduced at the request of the Hartford club, creating the office of woman factory inspector, with the same salary as the male inspector. The Judiciary Committee reported unanimously in favor. Great opposition developed in the House, but after some amendments it passed, but failed in the Senate.
In 1899 a Municipal Suffrage Bill was again introduced and reported upon favorably, but on the third reading it was rejected in the House, and defeated by 9 ayes, 12 noes in the Senate. A bill also was presented providing that any woman who pays taxes on real estate wherein she resides may vote at any meeting upon questions of taxation or appropriation of money. This passed the House, but was rejected in the Senate. The House refused to concur, and the Senate adhered to its former action.
There have been hearings before the Judiciary Committees of several Legislatures for the purpose of securing a Reformatory for Women. Members of the Woman's Aid Society of Hartford and others equally interested have appeared in its behalf.
The law regarding the property rights of women upon the statute books of to-day, except one amendment, was passed in April, 1877, and reads as follows:
In case of marriage on or after April 20, 1877, neither husband nor wife shall acquire, by force of marriage, any right to or interest in any property held by the other before, or acquired after such marriage, except as to the share of the survivor in the property as provided by law. The separate earnings of the wife shall be her sole property. She shall have power to make contracts with third persons and to convey to them her real estate, as if unmarried. Her property shall be liable to be taken for her debts except when exempt from execution, but in no case shall be liable to be taken for the debts of her husband. And the husband shall not be liable for her debts contracted before her marriage, nor upon contracts made after her marriage, except as provided by the succeeding sections.
The dower rights of women married before this date are: A life estate in one-third the husband's realty and one-half his personalty absolutely, unless they shall have made together with their husbands a written contract and recorded the same in the Probate Records, in which they mutually agree to abandon their respective common-law rights in the property of each other, and to claim in place thereof certain other rights as provided by statute made in 1877 as below. The husband before that date took the whole of the wife's personal estate absolutely and the use for life of all her real estate.
Women married on or after April 20, 1877, and those married earlier, who have made and recorded contracts with their husbands as above stated, have no dower rights, and their husbands have no rights by curtesy, but both have, in place of these, rights more valuable.
Where there are children, the survivor is entitled to one-third of decedent's real and personal estate absolutely, and in the absence of children, takes all of the decedent's estate absolutely to the extent of $2,000, and one-half of the remainder absolutely after the decedent's debts have been paid.