Page:The case for women's suffrage.djvu/78



When Mr. Dickinson decided to bring in a Women's Enfranchisement Bill, it was announced that he desired to include occupiers' wives, and the Guild issued a memorandum to Members of Parliament explaining and supporting the proposal. It was pointed out that under the Women's Enfranchisement Bill of last session, single women and widows would be qualified to vote as householders and lodgers, while married women, if enfranchised, would, in practice, only obtain votes as owners or joint occupiers (under the £10 franchise), qualifications requiring some degree of wealth, and out of the reach of the great majority of married working women. The Bill would only establish sex equality in the narrowest legal sense. The position of the married working women in the home, where her work was the rearing of children and not the earning of rent, &c, was due to her sex, and if she were forbidden to vote unless she paid the rent, the result would be her exclusion in consequence of sex. A small property qualification inflicted no appreciable hardship on a man. Owing to the economic dependence of married women, it was entirely inapplicable to the majority of women on marriage.

The proposal was very favourably received in some quarters, but those who have supported it on behalf of the Guild much regret that many suffragists regard it