tutional, as this is a State office. The same year a bill providing for the appointment of women physicians in the State insane asylums was referred to a committee and never reported.
Bills also have been presented for full suffrage and. suffrage for tax-paying women, but none has been acted upon. Several Acts have been passed prohibiting employers from working women in the chain gangs on the public roads in different counties.[1]
The most unjust discriminations against women in the property laws were removed by the Constitutional Convention of 1868. Since then a married woman may acquire and hold real estate and have the enjoyment of its income and profits in her own separate right, and she may dispose of it by will subject to the husband's curtesy (the life use of the whole); but she can not sell any of it without his consent. The husband can not sell his real estate so as to cut off the dower of the wife (the life use of one-third) without her consent.
The code of 1883 stipulates that if the husband receives the income of the wife's separate property and she offers no objection, he can not be made liable to account for his use of it for more than one year previous to the date of the complaint or of her death.
By an act of 1880, the husband is required to list the property of the wife "in his control."
Both dower and curtesy obtain. If there are neither descendants nor kindred the widow is heir of the entire estate. If there are not more than two children, and the husband die without a will, one-third of the personal property goes to the widow; if there are more than two children, she shares equally with them; if there be no child or legal representative of a deceased child, one-half goes to the widow, the other half to the kindred of the husband. If a wife die without a will, the widower has a life estate in her real property, if there has been issue born alive, and all of her personal property absolutely, subject to her debts.
A homestead to the value of $1,000 is exempt from sale during widowhood unless the widow have one in her own right.
The wife is not bound by contract unless the husband joins in writing. In actions against her he must be served with the suit.
- ↑ In 1901 a bill, supported by a petition largely signed by women, which provided for a reformatory for youthful criminals where they might be separated from the old and hardened, was introduced in the Legislature but never was brought to a vote.
