Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/246

 wife has become bankrupt, and who has lent her some money, is entitled before all the other creditors to take what belongs to him. This is unfair to the other creditors, and is using the wife's dependence and inferiority of legal position for an unworthy end. A husband should not be legally responsible for the libellous statements made or the assaults committed by his wife. She is a grown person and should bear the responsibility of her own misdeeds. In these ways and others should the principle of equal treatment and equal status be established.

The present apparent favouritism is not desirable for women, for it is based upon the assumption that they are the property of the men they marry, unreasoning and unreasonable beings for whom their men must be held responsible. It presupposes the absence of the moral sense in women and makes men the guardians of their infirmity. All this is ridiculous and out of date. The feminist idea that every human being should stand on his or her own feet, recognised by the law as a competent individual, recognised in the married state as one of two equal partners contracting to live together for a common end, each contributing to that end what each is specially designed to contribute, and each honouring the other for his or her share in the accomplishment of their common purpose, is more