Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/996

 The right of petition was also frequently used by the members of the State W. C. T. U.

In 1896 Mrs. Young addressed the Legislature in behalf of Presidential Suffrage for women. .

In 1892, '93, '95 and '98 the laws were improved.in regard to married women's property rights, allowing them to hold real) estate independently of their husbands, restraining husbands from collecting debts or wages owing to their wives, and making the wife's signature necessary to the legality of mortgage.

In 1895 it was enacted by the Constitutional Convention that, "The real and personal property of a woman, held at the time of her marriage, or that which she may thereafter acquire, either by gift, grant, inheritance, devise or otherwise, shall be her separate property, and she shall have all the rights incident to the same, to which an unmarried woman or a man is entitled. She shall have the power to contract and be contracted with, in the same manner as if she were unmarried."

Dower prevails but not curtesy. If either husband or wife die without a will the other has an equal claim on the property. Should there be one or more children, the survivor receives one-third of the real and the personal estate. If there are no lineal descendants, but collateral heirs, the survivor takes one-half of the entire estate. If there are no lineal descendants, father, mother, brother, sister, child of such brother or sister, brother of the half-blood or lineal ancestor, the survivor receives two-thirds of the estate and the other third goes to the next of kin. If there is no kin, the survivor takes the whole estate.

A homestead to the value of $1,000 is exempted to "the head of the family."

South Carolina is the only State which does not allow divorce.

The father is the legal guardian of the children, and may appoint a guardian of their persons and property by will.

The law requires the husband to support the family, but there is no effective way for its enforcement. Any one may sell the wife necessaries and subject the husband's property to the payment of the bills, if he does not furnish a suitable support, but he can claim his homestead against such a debt and in many ways render this remedy unavailing.