Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/755

 Art. 2350. The husband alone has the administration of the dowry, and his wife can not deprive him of it; he may act alone in a court of justice for the preservation or recovery of the dowry, against such as either owe or detain the same, but this does not prevent the wife from remaining the owner of the effects which she brought as her dowry.

Art. 2358. The wife may, with the authorization of her husband, or, on his refusal, with the authorization of the Judge, give her dotal effects for the establishment of the children she may have had by a former marriage.

All accumulations after marriage, except by inheritance, here as in all States, are the property of the husband. Any wages the wife may earn, the very clothes she wears, belong entirely to him.

The laws of inheritance of separate property are practically the same for widow and widower.

The father is the legal guardian of the persons and property of minor children. Until 1888 the custody of children while a divorce suit was pending was given to the father, but now this is granted to the mother. The final guardianship is awarded by the Judge to the one who succeeds in obtaining the divorce.

Before 1896 no "age of protection" for girls was named in the statutes, but the penalty for rape was death. In this year, the Arena Club of New Orleans, a socio-economic society of women, secured a law fixing the age at 16 years. The penalty was changed to imprisonment, with or without labor, for a period not exceeding five years, with no minimum penalty named.


 * Since 1898 taxpaying women have the right to vote in person or by proxy on all questions of taxation.


 * The clause in the constitution of 1879 that made women eligible to school offices was inoperative on account of some technicality, which in 1894 Mrs. Helen Behrens, a member of the Portia Club, succeeded in having removed. In 1896 Mrs. Evelyn W. Ordway, as chairman of a committee from the Era Club, presented a petition to the City Council signed by all of the editors and many other representative men of New Orleans, asking for the appointment of a woman to an existing vacancy on the school board, but this was refused. No women ever were appointed to such positions except in a few country districts.

The office of State librarian had been held by a number of women previous to 1898. The Constitutional Convention of that