Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/244

 order to any but the husband? The inconvenience to him is frequently very great, but not to be compared with the indignity to her. Surely in matters affecting her own baby the mother's opinion is worthy of an independent consideration. The English law says no. The feminist insists, yes.

The obligation to maintain a wife is not directly recognised by English law, though there are indirect ways of effecting this result. The wife may either pledge her husband's credit, which she is lawfully entitled to do, or she may go into the workhouse and become a public charge, and the husband may be sued by the Guardians for money for her support. If a married woman earn money the Married Woman's Property Act of 1870 has secured her earnings to her; but such money as she manages to save, by dint of care and thrift, out of the housekeeping money, may be claimed by a drunken or worthless husband for his own purposes. The Married Woman's Property Act of 1882 was a fine piece of legislation which placed married women with property in the same position as propertied single women, giving them the right to use and control all their present or future property and endowing them with all the responsibilities and obligations contracted by them in respect of their separate estate. The Act is not perfect, however, for it still leaves