14.714). A very elaborate bill was in 1921 before Parliament intended to give her an equal share with her brothers in her par- ents' landed property.
The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, 1919, provides that no person (whether man or woman) shall be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation or for admission to any incorporated society (whether incorporated by Royal Charter or otherwise), and a person shall not be exempted by sex or marriage from liability to serve as a juror. The word " person " in English law includes woman as well as man. The Act further provides (a) that His Majesty may by order in Council authorize the admission of women to the Civil Service, and reserve to men any branch of, or posts in, the Civil Service in H.M. pos- sessions overseas or in any foreign country; (b) that any judge or other person before whom a case is heard may in his discretion on application (in both civil and criminal cases) by either party or at his own instance make an order that the jury be composed of men or women only, or may on her application exempt a woman from service on a jury by reason of the nature of the evidence or issues to be tried. Rules of Court have been made as to summoning jurors, exempting women who are for medical reasons unfit to attend and as to procedure. Section 2 provides for the admission of women as solicitors. Section 3 enables any university to admit women to membership or any degree notwithstanding any statute or charter of such university. The Act overrides all previous statutes, orders in council, royal charters or other provisions inconsistent with it, and applies to the whole United Kingdom. 1
It will be observed that the qualification to hold office only applies to civil life. Military and ecclesiastical offices are not open to women. On the passing of the Act Viscountess Astor was almost immediately elected to the House of Commons and took her seat as a member, and women were appointed justices of the peace and began to serve on juries. The contrast between the position of women in 1921 and 50 years earlier is certainly very striking. The unmarried woman, both spinster and widow, was equally disqualified formerly from public functions and offices, but she was in the same legal position as a man for the purposes of contract and wrong-doing. In criminal law the married woman as well as the single one has now the same position , as a man with some trifling exceptions. The recent Larceny Act, which codifies the law, finally makes it possible for the wife as well as the husband to steal from one another when they are living apart, or deserting, or intending to desert the other. Up to the last-men-
- tioned date the medieval conception that the husband and wife were
one person made it impossible for them to steal from each other, just as it formerly made it impossible for one of them to give or convey property to the other. All this is now abolished and, with . the exceptions presently stated, a woman, even when married, must . be treated in law as a man. This is not however the case with military or ecclesiastical law. A woman is not liable to serve in the forces of the Crown, and she cannot in the Church of England or the Church of Rome be a priest or hold such ecclesiastical offices as are 1 held by men. She is also subject to her husband in ecclesiastical ' law, and they are regarded for many purposes as one person. She is also by the law of marriage regarded as under the authority of her husband. Her duty is obedience in all things not sinful. The husband has a right to her custody and control. She must live in the bouse he appoints and sleep with him if he wishes it. She has no emedy except to leave him, and if she does so for such a reason he s not bound to support her. He cannot however legally prevent icr from leaving him (Jackson v. Jackson 1891). She cannot get lamages from him for imprisonment (Tinkley v. Tinkley 1908).
The wife can obtain a maintenance order from a magistrate f she separates from her husband on the ground of his assault on icr, or his desertion. Orders made abroad can now be enforced in England, and, if made in England, can be enforced against the .usband abroad. Maintenance for the children can also be obtained
- p to los. per child (Married Woman Maintenance Act 1920).
In England until the Act of 1874 (36 and 37 Viet. c. 12) the father /as the sole guardian of the children of any marriage and was en- itled to the sole custody and control of them. The mother had no
- gal rights whatever. By an Act of Charles II. (1660) the father
'as given the sole right to appoint a guardian or guardians of his hildren to act after the father's death so long as they are under nty-one. By the Guardianship of Infants Act (1886) the mother, urviving, is the guardian of each child either alone, when no clian has been appointed by the father, or jointly with the dian appointed by him. The mother may also appoint a dian to act after her own and the father's death. Subject to
- confirmation by the Court she may also appoint a guardian to
- with the guardians appointed by the father. By Section 5 the
Vomen who wish to be solicitors should apply to the Incorporated ' Society, Chancery Lane, W. C. 2, or barristers to the Benches he Temple, E. C., or Gray's Inn or Lincoln's Inn, W. C. Nurses 1 midwiyes are under the Ministry of Health. There are penalties using either title without registration.
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Court may make such order as it thinks fit regarding the custody of the child and the right of access thereto by either parent " having regard (a) to the welfare of the child, (6) the conduct of the parents, and (c) the wishes as well of the father as of the mother." This statute however has been interpreted by the judges to mean that where the father's wishes and the mbther's were opposed the father's wishes must prevail. By the Guardianship of Infants bill (1921) the above Act would be wholly repealed. The father and mother in future and for all purposes would be joint guardians, and have joint custody, and have " equal authority, rights and responsibility with regard to every legitimate child, any former rule of law or equity to the contrary notwithstanding." The father and mother would be jointly and severally liable for the maintenance and education of the child ac- cording to his or her means on the application of either the father or mother or any other person acting as next friend. Their executors would also be liable. .
There is an old saying that lawyers are divided into two classes: those who think man is made for the law and those who think the law was made for man. It is the first class that makes the law unpopular; but it should be remembered that when husband and wife quarrel about their children the task of the judge is a very difficult one. The most difficult case is where they differ in religion. It has been laid down (Agar-Ellis case 1878) that the child must be brought up in the religion of the father. In this case he was a Roman Catholic and had not been guilty of misbehaviour. It was decided that the children must not be brought up by their mother on the ground that she might make them Protestants; if the father had been a Protestant' and the mother a Roman Catholic she would have been deprived of her children on the same grounds. It was further laid down that no promise by the father before marriage as to the education of his children can be enforced after marriage, as he has a right to alter his mind. The last named decision might well be re- versed by statute. In the case of property the husband's agreement before marriage can be enforced, and it seems unjust not to enforce his agreement as to the children. But in cases where the father and mother are of different religions and no promise has been given, it makes the judge's task a difficult one. Hard cases make bad law, and the difficulty lies, not with the judges, but in the real tragedy of these disagreements. (R. TH.)
(2) UNITED STATES. Although the legal emancipation of women was far advanced in the United States at the end of the igth century, three things were yet incomplete: (i) full recogni- tion and securing of the individual interests of women in the domestic relations, which were often left unsecured legally be- cause of survival of doctrines or institutions coming down from a state of society in which all women were dependents, and were normally under a sort of guardianship; (2) full logical develop- ment of the legal capacity of married women and doing away with the remnants of their common-law disabilities, already long abrogated for the most part in the United States, but surviving here and there in curious local anomalies; (3) legal taking ac- count of the facts of women's physical constitution in their rela- tion to wages and hours and conditions of labour in industry, and securing of the social interest in the individual life of women by adequately protecting them in these connexions.
With the progressive breaking down of the legal conception of the household as an entity ruled from within by a head, and as an agency of social control, it becomes necessary to give legal recog- nition and protection to individual interests of women in the do- mestic relations, which at common law were supposed to be se- cured through the internal economy of the household, or were left unsecured in view of a paramount social interest in the house- hold as a social institution. Summarily, these may be put as parental interests interests of women in the relation of parent and child, and marital interests interests of women in the rela- tion of husband and wife.
Parent and Child. At common law the father was entitled to the custody of his minor child and the mother had a right to custody only after the father's death. In form this still stands in the books as law, but in substance there has been a complete change within a generation. Equity long ago refused to give effect to the father's common-law right of custody as against the interest of the child, and by taking the equitable doctrine of regard for the interest of the child over into the law, the courts have been able to put father and mother upon an equality for practical purposes in almost all juris- dictions. Yet the common-law doctrine remains theoretically in force in the absence of legislation, and legislation halts. One de- cision as late as 1905 holds that as between father and mother, the former has a legal right to control the religious training of the children. (Hernandez v. Thomas, 50 Florida Reports, $22, 536.)
Husband and Wife. Marital interests of women include claims against the world at large growing out of the relation of husband and
