Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/245

 the woman in the position of chattel in one or two important respects. By the wording of the Act the wife who breaks a contract made with a third person cannot be proceeded against except in respect of her separate estate. If she has no separate estate she cannot be imprisoned for her behaviour, because to imprison her would be to rob the husband unlawfully of his property, i.e. of her person. No self-respecting woman would claim a privilege of this sort, but would urge with the feminists that the woman be punished with the man for the same offence against commercial honour. It should be made possible for a married woman to be proceeded against on a Bankruptcy notice as in the case of men; she should also be made responsible for the payment of her own income-tax. The spectacle recently presented to the amused world of a poor husband imprisoned because a rich wife declined to pay her income-tax as a protest against her continued disfranchisement illustrates the present unsatisfactory condition of the law.

The law should be amended to make husband and wife equal in regard to a loan with which either may supply the other. A bankrupt husband whose wife has lent him money is not obliged to pay her before his other creditors have been paid, which probably the wife would approve. The man whose