Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/240

 women. Feminists have long felt that the unequal treatment of men and women under the law supplies the most disastrous and harmful object lesson in the inferiority of the position of women which the growing youth of the country could possibly witness. To know that the law permitted to his father conduct for which his mother would be divorced, and to note that this conduct carried with it no public censure for the man whilst it covered the woman with shame, was and is the finest instigator to similar practices that the young man could have.

The divorce law of England has long been a scandal; but not the divorce law alone. England is one of the very few countries in the world in which the husband may, if he chooses, will away all his property to strangers, leaving his wife penniless and without redress. Englishmen are much better than their laws, but many cases have actually occurred where, on the death of a husband, the wife has discovered herself to be penniless, he having willed away to his mistress and her children all the fortune he possessed. If a husband should die without making a will the widow is entitled to the whole of the property, realty and personalty, if together the value is not more than £500. If the fortune left exceed this sum, she is entitled to one-third of the rents of the remaining realty after her share