in walking and riding, in playing cards, or visiting their friends and keeping company, conversing with their equals and neighbors, and making merry with them at child-birth, christening, churchings and funerals. And all this with the permission and knowledge of their husbands."
In strange contrast herewith was the legal position of women. It was, as D. Staars says in his interesting book "The English Woman," "entirely detrimental. They were under the absolute authority of their husbands. In regard to property, husband and wife were considered by the law as forming one indivisible person. Therefore a husband could not make a deed of gift to his wife, or make a contract with her. The subordinate position of the married women was evident in the whole of her existence. The husband was his wife's guardian, and if anyone carried her off he had a right to claim damages. He could also inflict corporal punishment on her sufficient to correct her. All the property which she might afterwards acquire, became by her marriage the common property of husband and wife, but only the husband had a right to the income, because he alone had control and administration of the property. Not only lands, but also funds, furniture, plate, and even the bed and ornaments of a woman, all became the husband's property on the wedding day, and he could sell or dispose of it as he pleased. A married woman could not even make a will. Only when she became a widow, her clothes and personal possessions again became her own property, provided, however, that her husband had not otherwise disposed of them in his will. Furthermore, she had a right to the income of a third of all the husband's property."
These unsatisfactory conditions later on caused the English women to join their American sisters in the struggle for emancipation.
139
