bably
the latter. Minnesota forbids the marriage of imbecile or epileptic
persons; Nebraska that of first cousins, and Pennsylvania adopts the
uniform divorce law recommended by the commissioners. Five other
States reform their divorce laws, and four their laws concerning
married women's property, and seventeen adopt new laws for compulsory
support of the woman and children by the husband.

In 1906 one more State adopts the idea of giving a vote to female
property-owners in money elections. One puts the age of consent up
to sixteen. In a good many States it is already eighteen. Women's
suffrage is again rejected in Oregon; and finally even South Dakota
reforms her divorce laws.

Perhaps a word should be given to other laws relating to minors as
well as to young women. There is very general legislation throughout
the country forbidding the sale of intoxicating liquor to persons
under twenty-one, and in the great majority of the States the sale
of cigarettes, narcotics or other drugs, or even tobacco, to persons
under twenty-one, eighteen, or fifteen, respectively. In some States
it is forbidden, or made a misdemeanor, to insure the lives of
children--very important legislation, if necessary. In 1904 Virginia
passed a statute punishing kidnapping with death, which is followed in
1905 by heavy penalties for abduction in three other States; fourteen
States establish juvenile courts. Seven States make voluntary
cohabitation a crime, and six pass what are known as curfew laws.
Indeed, it may be generally said that the tendency is, either by State
statute or municipal ordinance, to forbid children, or at least girls
under sixteen, from being unattended on the streets of a city after a
certain hour in the evening.

In 1907 Mississippi makes the age of consent twelve, and the penalty
for rape death, which, indeed, is the common law, but which law has
extraordinary consequences when the age is raised, as it is in many
States, to eighteen. Two more States adopt the laws against abduction
and one a statute against blackmail.

Sufficient has, perhaps, been said to give the reader a general view
of contemporary law-making on this most important matter of personal
relations. Most of the matters mentioned in this chapter are cohered
by various learned societies in annual reports, or even by the
government, in cases of marriage and divorce, and to such special
treatises the reader may be referred for more precise information. The