Laws: While the laws of Colorado always have been liberal to women in many respects, there are a few notable exceptions.
The first Legislature of the Territory, in 1861, passed a bill to the effect that either party to the marriage contract might dispose of property without the signature or consent of the other. The men of this new mining country often had left their wives thousands of miles away in the Eastern States; there was no railroad or telegraph; mining claims, being real estate, had to be transferred by deed, often in a hurry, and this law was largely a necessity. It now works great injustice to women, however, through the fact that all the property accumulated after marriage belongs to the husband and he may legally dispose of it without the wife's knowledge, leaving her penniless. Even the household goods may be thus disposed of.[1]
A law of recent years exempts from execution a homestead to the value of $2,000 for "the head of the family," but even this can be sold by the husband without the wife's signature, although he can not mortgage it. This property must be designated as a "homestead" on the margin of the recorded title, and it must be occupied by the owner. "A woman occupying her own property as the home of the family has the right to designate it as a homestead. The husband has the legal right to live with her and enjoy the homestead he has settled upon her."(!) He has, however, the sole right to determine the residence of the family, as in every other State, and by removing from a property the homestead right is destroyed. If the husband abandon the wife and acquire a homestead elsewhere, she has a right only in that.
Neither curtesy nor dower obtains. The surviving husband or wife, if there are children or the descendants of children living, receives, subject to the payment of debts, one-half of the entire estate, real and personal. If there is no living child nor a descendant of any child, the entire estate goes to the survivor.
Husband and wife have the same rights in making wills. Each can will away from the other half of his or her separate property.
In buying and selling, making contracts, suing and being sued, the married woman has the same rights as the unmarried.
- ↑ A bill was introduced in the Legislature of 1901 to give the wife a half interest in all the earnings after marriage, but it failed to pass either House, perhaps owing to the time consumed by the important revenue bill.
