Marriage And Divorce

Prof. J. C. Knowlton spoke before a goodly audience, at the Inland League last night, ou "Some Peculiar Phases of Marriage and Divorce Laws." The position of women legally is generally misunderstood. Theoretically, she is inferior to man, but practically, she is his legal superior. There have been great changes in the law vvithin the last century. Under the common law, a woman's property becomes at marriage, her husbands, now she retains it; the husband had the right of chastising the wife, now this would be considered good ground for divorce. All of the restrictions which the law places upon woman amount to advantages. She cannot inake contracts and henee cannot be arrested for pebt. She is excused from very grave crimes, on the ground that any deed committed in the presence of her husband may not be her free act. If a wife should "use the broom" on the husband, no matter how severely, the law could in no way protect him. There is no such thing as a right to vote, it is a privilege given by society. Woman suffrage is, therefore, only a question of whether it would be profitable to exchange this present condition of "adult babies" for one of harsh equality. The Professor severely critizised the present conflicting jumble of marriage and divorce laws in the United States, and closed with an appeal for a study in colleges of the rudiments of the law of domestic relations.