Page:The Legal Subjection of Men.djvu/72

 :9. Privilege to Waylay.
 * 10. Privilege to Libel and Slander.

The process of imprisonment for debt (nominally for contempt of Court in not paying an instalment of a debt) is retained in England under the Debtors Acts, 1869 and 1882. But not in the case of the married female. No married woman is to be punished for non-payment of debt, and the Court is incapable of being contemned by a married woman. This superiority to Common Law standard, for the mere male, yet again marks out the woman as a member of an inviolable noblesse.

A woman can obtain goods and not be compelled to pay for them, may use all her arts of persuading the chivalrous trader—but no compulsory power of imprisonment need disturb her. This may or may not be a good rule, if applied as in certain American States, to both men and women. But when reserved to women, it is an obvious sex privilege.

A married woman, as already pointed out, although rolling in wealth and owning tens of thousands a year, even when separated and released from all duty to her husband and children, retains her privilege of having her property exempt from seizure for debt. Some very amusing cases—amusing that is to all except the male litigant—of rich women refusing to pay traders and solicitors will be present to the public mind. When a rich woman develops a taste for litigation, the wisdom of the legislature has found no way of protecting the defendant from ruinous costs. Even if she quarrels with her solicitor, he is powerless to protect himself against being mulcted in costs—perhaps a happy stroke of poetic justice, as lawyers have largely created these oppressive sex-privileges of women. (See the many ramifications of the Cathcart Case.)