THE PROPERTY OF MARRIED WOMEN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 234, 5 October 1868, Page 2

THE PROPERTY OF MARRIED WOMEN.

(COMMUNICATED.) At last the married women of England are likely to be righted by having the protection which can now be accorded to their real property extended to their personal property, and thus possess the power of exercising as absolute a control over their personal possessions as they can now exercise over real property. In this respect the English married woman has hitherto stood in the lowest grade of their sex iv any nation — far, far below the women of Turkey. Mr Shaw Lefevre had the honor o± introducing this bill into the House of Commons. He wos supported by Messrs Karslake, Mill, Jacob Bright, Lowe, and a host of orators. Mr Lowe's was considered the speech on the occasion ; the following is extracted from that speech: — ' The question is simply this — ought the common law with regard to the property of married women to stand or not? The common law is this : that the personal property of married women, whether possessed before or acquired after her marriage, is not hers at all, but is the absolute property of her husband, and that the land of a married woman is for the benefit of the husband during her life, and, in the event of his surviving her, is his property, in case there are children by the marriage, till his death. 'Is that right or not? Is the law founded on justice and righteousness, equality and fairness; or is it founded on injustice, tyrauuy, and oppression? If a woman possesses property and is married, the law, beiug no doubt afraid the husband might tyrannically take it from her, puts that temptation out of his reach by taking the property away and giving it to him all at once. This is the simple state of the law. Now show me what crime there is in matrimony that it should be visited with the same punishment as high .treason— namely, confiscation, for that is really the fact. The property is as much confiscated and taken from the woman and her children by the husband as if she had committed a capital offence, it is gone from her for ever. 1 Well, now what is the duty of the law? We, as legislators, have just as much a duty to perform as fathers or guardians, and" in a case where no marriage settlement is made, we ought to put ourselves in the place of parents and show towards the persons we are bound to protect, just the same feelings of kindness and beneficence, aud the same wish to protect and spare them from injury which the parent or guardian is bound to show to his child or ward; aud what is the most just settlement? Not surely to give over the whole of her property to her husband. * Casee sometimes occur in which a'man without a shilling marries a woman with landed property. He becomes a tenant for his own life by the courtesy of England. He takes a dislike£to her; he studies the law of cruelty; *and, having adopted a course which just prevents her from getting a judicial separation, he drives her from her home, and his children with her, to live in poverty, and almost in need, where they are uuknbwn, while he keeps a large establishment, perhaps on her estate, and at her expense, and is a

•great person in the county. And thai is done not through her fault or negligence, but by the iniquity of the law, ■which puts it in his power to do this by taking her property from her, and enables him to fatten upon the spoils of her whom he has sworn to .love and cherish. Then there is the very common case of the legacy left to the wife, and taken and squandered by the husband. * We, legislators, are responsible for this if we allow these things to be done. Let us put aside all questions of social policy aud marital rights, and ask ourselves whether anything can be shown to justify us in taking away property from one person and giving it, without any consideration, to another. We are actually giviug a premium to a man to run away with a girl and marry her without the consent of her parents. If a man makes honorable iove to a girl the matter is carefully looked to by her parents and guardiaus, and property is settled upon her. But if a mau can induce a young woman to leave her father's house and marry him, her property becomes his ablutely, so that it is to the interest of the man to marry, without the knowledge of her parents and without settlement, one of the unprotected aud weaker sex. ' For these reasons I cannot let the bill pass a second reading without beariog my testimony to the flagrant iniquity of the present law.' Ou a division there was a 'tie' (123 to JL23), when the Speaker, ia accordance with the rule laid down that a bill in such a situation should be further considered, gave his casting vote with the Ayes, and the bill was referred to a select committee. The observer of the annals of crime in G-reat Britain cannot fail to have been struck with the amount of juvenile depravity. And yet education is spreading in the land, and children of all ranks are embraced in the moral and intellectual culture which is one of the distinctive features of the age; but it is necessary that the moral element in the younger members of the community should at least keep pace with the intellectual. There is too much laxity in the modern social system, as there was over-severity in the days of our forefathers. The days are past when the master of a house held an almost supreme patriarchal sway over its inmates; bo are the days of Queen Bess, when notable ladies of quality carried a fan a yard long at their girdle, wherewith to smite the indolent, whether daughters or serving-maidens; so too are passed those more recent days of strict parental rule when children dared not speak unless spoken to by their parents, and unmarried daughters at home, albeit 40 years of age, never presumed to sit without invitation in the parental presence. These days are passed, and no one can wish to see them restored. But surely there is a medium between this almost unnatural formality and the careless opinionatedness and utter contempt of parental control exhibited by quite young children of the present day. Would not the parental indulgence from which this laxity springs be more true to itself and to the best interests of its object if it combined a little more parental discipline? Does not the selfishness and selfpleasing which over-indulgence and laxity cannot fail to produce in the child, grow with his growth and produce the most disastrous consequences when developed in the man? It would be well for those who have the care of you th, and the responsibility ot training children for good or for evil, to note the signs of the times, and to do all in their power to counteract the growing spirit of selfishness and self-in-dulgence which the present fashionable laxity of training does but too fatally foster.