Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/522

 heaval which follows the death of the husband, the inventories which must be taken, the divisions which must be made, generally resulting in the breaking up of the home; while at the death of the wife all passes peacefully into the possession of the husband and there is no scattering of the family unless he wishes it. A general but necessarily superficial statement of the property laws will be found in connection with each State in the following chapters, and they represent a complete legal revolution during the past half century.

Fathers and mothers are given equal guardianship of children in the District of Columbia and nine States—Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York and Washington. (See Pennsylvania.) In all others the father has the sole custody and control of the persons, education, earnings and estates of minor children. Where this right is abused the mother can obtain custody only by applying for separation or divorce or proving in court the unfitness of the father. In a number of States the father may by will appoint a guardian even of a child unborn, to the exclusion of the mother. In others the widow is legally entitled to the guardianship but forfeits it by marrying again. Others do not permit a widow to appoint by will a guardian for her children. Tennessee and Louisiana offer examples of the English and French codes in this respect.

Although the father is the sole guardian and entitled to the services of the children, and although the joint earnings of the marriage belong exclusively to him, and in a number of States he is declared in the statutes to be the "head of the family," in many of them the mother is held to be equally liable for its support. Her separate property may be taken for this purpose and she is also required to contribute by her labor. In such cases the husband decides what constitutes "necessities" and the wife must pay for what he orders. A recent decision of the Illinois courts compelled a wife to pay for the clothes of an able-bodied husband. In most but not all of the States the husband, if competent, is punished for failure to support his family. The punishment consists in a fine, the State thus taking from the family what money he may possess; or confinement in prison, where he is boarded and lodged while the family is in nowise relieved.