Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/696

Rh and in the same manner, that the husband can property belonging to him. And this provision is followed by others which fully confer on the married woman the control of her own property. Among other things it is enacted, that a wife may receive the wages of her personal labor, and maintain an action therefor in her own name, and hold the same in her own right; and she may prosecute and defend all actions at law, or in equity, for the preservation and protection of her rights and property. Contracts may be made by a wife, and liabilities incurred, and the same may be enforced by, or against her, to the same extent as though she were unmarried. The property of both husband and wife is equally liable for the expenses of the family and the education of their children, and neither is liable for the debts of the other contracted before marriage. By the code of 1873, now in force, it is declared that the parents are the natural guardians of their children, and are equally entitled to their care and custody; and either parent dying before the other, the survivor becomes the guardian.

But notwithstanding the seemingly equal provisions of our code, there is still a great disparity in the laws relating to the joint property of husband and wife—or property accumulated during marriage by their joint earnings and savings. Such property, whether real or personal, is generally held in the name of the husband—no matter how much his wife may have helped to accumulate it. If the wife dies, the husband still holds it all, and neither law nor lawyers can molest him, or question his right to it. But if the husband dies, the case is very different. Instead of being left in quiet possession of what is rightfully her own, to use and guard with all a mother's care and watchfulness for the benefit of her children, the law comes in and claims the right to appoint administrators and guardians—to require bonds and a strict accountability from her, and to set off to her a certain share of what should be as wholly hers as it is the husband's when the wife dies.

This is the old common law, that has come down to us from barbarous times, and the light of the nineteenth century has not yet been sufficient to so illumine the minds of Iowa legislators as to enable them to render exact justice to woman.