A married woman has absolute control over her separate property and may mortgage or convey it or dispose of it by will without the husband’s consent. The husband has the same right, but in conveying real estate which is community property, the wife’s signature is necessary.
A married woman may engage in business in her own name and “her earnings, wages and savings become her separate estate without any express gift or contract of the husband, when she is permitted to receive and retain them and to loan and invest them in her own name and for her own benefit, and they are exempt from execution for her husband’s debts.” (1894.)
A married woman may make contracts, sue and be sued in her own name.
The father is the legal guardian of the children, and at his death the mother. The survivor may appoint a guardian.
Support for the wife may be granted by the court the same as alimony in divorce, if the husband have property in the State. If not there is no punishment for non-support. (1896.)
The “age of protection” for girls was raised from 10 to 13 years in 1888, and to 18 years in 1896. The penalty is imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than five years.
Suffrage: The Territorial Legislature conferred the Full Suffrage on women in 1870, and they exercised it very generally until 1887 when they were deprived of it by Congress through what is known as the Edmunds-Tucker Act. Utah entered the Union in 1896 with Full Suffrage for women as an article of the State constitution.
That they exercise this privilege quite as extensively as men is shown by the following table prepared from the election statistics of 1900. It is not customary to make separate returns of the women’s votes and these were obtained through the courtesy. of Governor Wells, who, at the request of the Utah Council of Women, wrote personal letters to the county officials to secure them. Eleven of the more remote counties did not respond but those having the largest population did so, and, judging from previous statistics, the others would not change the proportion of the vote.
