sbands; I know
of no corresponding statute permitting the husband to get damages
for drinks sold the wife. A wife may testify against the husband in
certain cases, as actions for alienating of affection, or criminal
conversation; not so the husband. Texas and other Southwestern States
adopt the statute that an action for seduction shall be suspended on
the defendant's marriage with the plaintiff, otherwise it is a felony,
and it is again a felony should he after such marriage desert her--the
Fourteenth Amendment to the contrary notwithstanding (which reminds
one of the colonial Massachusetts statute, that the punishment for
that offence may either be imprisonment in the state-prison, or
marriage!).

The laws aimed at mere sin increase in number. One State makes
improper relations, even by mutual consent, punishable with four years
in the state-prison, if the girl be under eighteen. North Dakota
introduces a bill to require medical examination in all cases as a
prerequisite to marriage; it failed in North Dakota that year, but was
promptly introduced in other States. In Oregon all widows and fathers
may vote, without regard to property qualification, in school district
elections; and this State joins the number of those which forbid the
marriage of first cousins.

In 1901 came the great New York statute abolishing the common-law
marriage, which we have discussed above. Some States pass laws
punishing wife-beating by either imprisonment or a whipping. In 1902
perhaps the most interesting thing is that there is no legislation
whatever of any kind on the subject of women's suffrage--showing
distinctly the refluent wave. In 1903 New Hampshire rejects a
constitutional amendment for women's suffrage. Kansas restricts the
marriage of epileptic and weak-minded persons. Several States reform
their divorce laws, and Pennsylvania adopts Southern ideas giving
divorce for a previous unchastity discovered after marriage. This
matter has so far been covered by no Northern State, though it had
been law from all time in Virginia.

In 1904 women's suffrage was proposed in Oregon, and in 1905 rejected.
Illinois follows New York in abolishing the common-law marriage, and
raises the age to eighteen in a woman and twenty-one in a man. As is
often the case, it does not appear from the ambiguous wording of the
statute whether this invalidates the marriage or merely subjects the
offenders, or the minister or the magistrate, to a penalty; pro