Page:The case for women's suffrage.djvu/94

 An unmarried woman, once she has become the owner of property, whether real or personal, has precisely the same rights and liabilities in respect of it as a man. The laws of inheritance, however, draw a distinction between men and women in the case of real estate. Women cannot inherit freehold property under an intestacy, except in default of male heirs. For example, if a person dies intestate leaving two children, a son and a daughter, the children will take equal shares of his personal estate, but the son will, in addition to his share of the personal estate, take the whole of the real estate.

The effect of marriage on a woman's proprietary rights is part of the general subject of the disabilities involved by marriage. Married women are, or rather have been, in a very different position from that of their spinster sisters. The foundation of the disabilities imposed upon married women is the old legal rule that husband and wife are one. That "one" is the husband, be it understood, for the identity of the wife is, according to Common Law, entirely lost and merged in that of her husband. Modern legislation has by successive steps encroached upon this doctrine, and little by little the wives of this country have won, and are winning, legal and social recognition of their separate existence, their personal importance, and their right to freedom of action.

The husband's right of control over the personal liberty of his wife is now greatly diminished. In the famous Jackson case It was decided that a man may not imprison his wife. She Is legally