Waruts.—Savage and Barbarie ** Survivals ? in Marriage. 259 
landed property to the males of his family; and in bequeathing his money, 
he gave to the females only units, and to the males hundreds of thousands. 
The English law punishes a woman for marrying, by depriving her of her 
property ; though rich people, who are able to employ lawyers, can to a 
certain small extent baffle the law by marriage settlements, pin-money, ete. 
The principle of English law seems to be that whatever is the wife’s is the 
husband’s, but whatever is the husband’s is not the wife’s. But I feel 
again that I am getting beyond my depth; and that, though stating what is 
substantially correct, I am likely, as a layman, to blunder in the language 
I employ. In my difficulty, I will fall back upon the great philosopher and 
the able lawyer whom I have md quoted from. Two or three very 
short extracts will suffice :— 
“ The wife's position under the common law of England is worse than 
that of slaves under the laws of many countries: by the Roman law, for 
example, a slave might have his peculium, which, to a certain extent, the 
law guaranteed to him for his exclusive use." Again, ** The English law 
deprives a married woman of any property in real estate, or of any power 
to dispose of it by deed or will, as against her husband, unless it has been 
expressly vested in trustees, or given to her for her separate use." And, 
with the exception of what comes to her as the heiress of an intestate, ** at law 
her husband is entitled to the rents and profits of any other realty she may 
have, nor can she convey it without his concurrence. As to personality : 
till 1870 England was the only country in which a wife had no rights to 
personal property ; in which she could neither bequeath it by will nor dis- 
pose of it by gift, and in which it was at the merey of her husband, and 
subject to his debts." Again, “It is still possible, in England, for a man 
to leave all his property, and so much, also, of his wife's as does not fall 
within the scant provision of the Property Act of 1870, away from her and 
- her children, so as to leave them absolute paupers." 
I ask your pardon for alluding to matters of this sort, which I know I 
do not fully understand. You should remember I do not undertake to set 
before you all the intricate relations of married women to property. The 
statements made, and the quotations adduced are only samples, intended to 
prove that, in reference to property and other things, women are still 
treated much as if they were slaves, or poor creatures to whom less 
of legal justice and kindness is due than to man, their free and lordly 
brother. Like his male progenitors in the wild days of yore, man still 
continues woman's legal and social tyrant. He is like Shakespeare's fox— 
** Who —ne'er so tamed, so "irit ueri locked-up— 
Still has a wild trick of his ance 
I doubt if you will find, amid all the s and anomalies of our 
