University of Virginia Library

IMPROVEMENT IN WOMAN'S STATUS.

The powerful influence of Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony on the revolution which has taken place in the status of women during the past fifty years is sometimes denied, and the assertion is made that this has been merely a part of the natural evolution of the race. The battle of Lexington did not secure the independence of the colonies, but here was fired the shot that echoed round the world. That First Woman's Rights Convention, and those which followed in the early '50's, did not obtain emancipation for woman, but they attracted the attention of the whole country to the injustice under which she struggled, and set people to thinking. If these two leaders had waged their preliminary fight in any other State, it probably would not have made so widespread an impression; but a half century ago, as now, New York set the pace for other parts of the Union. Although it made the innovation, in 1848, of empowering a married woman to hold property, it was not until 1860, and after Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton had been circulating petitions and besieging the Legislature for ten years, that the sweeping laws were enacted which enabled her to carry on business in her own name, possess her earnings, bring action and defend suits, make a contract and a will, and be joint guardian of her children.

From that time there has been a gradual concession of these privileges in various States, until now, in about three-fourths of them, a wife may own and control her separate property; and in all of them she may dispose of it by will. In about two-thirds she has a right to her earnings.

In a great majority of them she may make contracts, bring and defend suits, act as administrator, and testify in the courts. Although the New York legislature gave mothers equal guardianship of children in 1860, it took this away in [illustration ecs4 omitted] 1862, and did not restore it till 1893. This concession has been slowly made, and now it obtains in only nine States; but as it has been secured in most of these within the past seven years, there is reason to believe the precedent is fully established, and others will speedily follow.

Mrs. Stanton was the first to demand that habitual drunkenness should be held as cause for divorce — in that first State Temperance Convention of Women, called by Miss Anthony in Rochester, N. Y., in 1852 — but she was not sustained by more than half a dozen of even the most radical reformers, though always by Miss Anthony. In 1860 she presented her views on this question at a Woman's Rights Convention in New York City, and even so broad-minded a man as Wendell Phillips demanded that her resolutions be expunged from the minutes. To-day habitual drunkenness is named as a cause for divorce in all but eight of the States, although, strange to say, not in New York.

One of the grievances set forth at the convention of 1848 was that "man has denied to woman the facilities for a thorough education, all colleges being closed against her." At that time not even a high school was open to girls. To-day they are admitted to every one in the United States and to every State university except three — those of Virginia, Georgia, and Louisiana.

Another grievance was that "man had monopolized the remunerative employments." The present industrial position of women, with three and a quarter millions engaged in employments outside of domestic service, needs no comment.

Still another grievance was the denial to

women of the right to speak in public, and here, again, there is no necessity for specifying as to the tremendous revolution of the past fifty years, of which the concrete facts must ever stamp Elizabeth Cady Stanton as a leader.