Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/604

 position developed in the House, but after some amendments it passed, but failed in the Senate.

In 1899 a Municipal Suffrage Bill was again introduced and reported upon favorably, but on the third reading it was rejected in the House, and defeated by 9 ayes, 12 noes in the Senate. A bill also was presented providing that any woman who pays taxes on real estate wherein she resides may vote at any meeting upon questions of taxation or appropriation of money. This passed 'the House, but was rejected in the Senate. The House refused to concur, and the Senate adhered to its former action.

There have been hearings before the Judiciary Committees of several Legislatures for the purpose of securing a Reformatory for Women. Members of the Woman's Aid Society of Hartford and others equally interested have appeared in its behalf.

The law regarding the property rights of women upon the statute books of to-day, except one amendment, was passed in April, 1877, and reads as follows:

In case of marriage on or after April 20, 1877, neither husband nor wife shall acquire, by force of marriage, any right to or interest in any property held by the other before, or acquired after such marriage, except as to the share of the survivor in the property as provided by law. The separate earnings of the wife shall be her sole property. She shall have power to make contracts with third persons and to convey to them her real estate, as if unmarried. Her property shall be liable to be taken for her debts except when exempt from execution, but in no case shall be liable to be taken for the debts of her husband. And the husband shall not be liable for her debts contracted before her marriage, nor upon contracts made after her marriage, except as provided by the succeeding sections.

The dower rights of women married before this date are: A life estate in one-third the husband's realty and one-half his personalty absolutely, unless they shall have made together with their husbands a written contract and recorded the same in the Probate Records, in which they mutually agree to abandon their respective common-law rights in the property of each other, and to claim in place thereof certain other rights as provided by statute made in 1877 as below. The husband before that date took the whole of the wife's personal estate absolutely and the use for life of all her real estate.

Women married on or after April 20, 1877, and those married earlier, who have made and recorded contracts with their husbands as above stated, have no dower rights, and their husbands have no rights by curtesy, but both have, in place of these, rights more valuable.

Where there are children, the survivor is entitled to one-third of