Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/974

 absolutely. If there is neither issue nor kindred and no will the surviving husband or wife takes the whole estate.

A husband may mortgage real estate, including the homestead, without the wife's consent, but she can not mortgage even her own separate estate without his consent. Each can dispose of personal property as if single.

As a rule a married woman can not make a contract, but there are some exceptions. For instance, she can contract for the purchase of a sewing-machine for her own use. The wife must sue and be sued jointly with the husband.

A married woman must secure the privilege from the court of carrying on business in her own name.

The law provides that the party found guilty of adultery can not. marry the co-respondent during the lifetime of the other party. If any divorced woman, who shall have been found guilty of adultery, shall afterward openly cohabit with the person proved to have been the partaker of her crime, she is rendered incapable of alienating either directly or indirectly any of her lands, tenements or hereditaments, and all wills, deeds, and other instruments Of conveyance therefor are absolutely void, and after her death her property descends and is subject to distribution according to law in like manner as if she had died intestate. This latter clause does not apply to a divorced man.

In June, 1895, through the legislative committee of the State W. S. A., Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg, chairman, and with the co-operation of other women's organizations, the following law, championed by Representative Frank Riter, was secured:

A married woman who contributes by the efforts of her own labor or otherwise toward the support, maintenance and education of her minor child, shall have the same and equal power, control and authority over her said child, and the same and equal right to the custody and services, as are now possessed by her husband who is the father of such minor child.

The best legal authorities are undecided as to whether labor within the household entitles the mother to this equal guardianship or whether it must be performed outside the home. The father is held to be the only person entitled to sue for the earnings" of a minor child, and as no legal means are provided for enforcing the above law it is practically of no effect.