Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/566

 inent women adorn the walls. The suffrage papers are kept on file and quantities of fresh literature are ready for distribution. Stationery, photographs, medallions, etc., are for sale, a register is open for the enrollment of friends and a member of the league is always in attendance. When another amendment campaign is to be made Southern California will be found ready for work and will declare in its favor by a largely increased majority.

The original property law of California is an inheritance from the Mexicans, which it incorporated in its own code, and it is quite as unjust as those which still exist on the statute books of some States as a remnant of the barbarous old English Common Law. Community property includes all which is accumulated by the joint labors of husband and wife after marriage. This is in the absolute control of the husband. Previous to 1891 he could dispose of all of it as if he had no wife, could will, sell, mortgage, pledge or give it away. That year the. Legislature enacted that he could not make a gift of it or convey it without a valuable consideration, unless the wife consented in writing, although he could still dispose of it in ordinary business transactions without her knowledge or consent. The decision in the Spreckles case apparently nullified this law, as the gift was made in 1893 and the Supreme Court in 1897 declared it legal.

In 1895 it was provided that at the husband's death the wife 1s entitled to one-half of what remains, subject to one-half of the debts. At the death of the wife the whole belongs absolutely to the husband without administration. If some portion of it may have been set apart for her support by judicial decree, this