elect. He may even
give them away by will. "The personal property of the wife, such
as money, goods, cattle, and other chattels, which she had in
possession at the time of her marriage, in her own right, and not
in the right of another, vest immediately in the husband, and he
can dispose of them as he pleases. On his death, they go to his
representatives, like the residue of his property. So, if any
such goods or chattels come to her possession in her own right,
after the marriage, they, in like manner, immediately vest in the
husband." "Such property of the wife, as bonds, notes, arrears of
rent, legacies, which are termed _choses in action_, do not vest
in the husband by mere operation of marriage. To entitle him to
them, he must first reduce them into possession, by recovering
the money, or altering the security, as by making them payable to
himself. If the husband appoint an attorney to receive a debt or
claim due the wife, and the attorney received it, or if he
mortgaged the claim or debt, or assign it for a valuable
consideration, or recover judgment by suit, in his own name, or
if he release it, in all these cases the right of the wife, upon
the decease of the husband, is gone."

The real estate of the wife, such as houses and lands, is in
nearly the same state of subjection to the husband's will. He is
entitled to all the rents and profits while they both live, and
the husband can hold the estate during his life, even though the
wife be dead. A woman may thus be stripped of every available
cent she ever had in the world, and even see it squandered in
ministering to the low appetite or passions of a drunken
debauchee of a husband. And when, by economy and toil, she may
have acquired the means of present subsistence, this, too, may be
_lawfully_ taken from her, and applied to the same base purpose.
Even her Family Bible, the last gift of a dying mother, her only
remaining comfort, can be lawfully taken and sold by the husband,
to buy the means of intoxication. _This very thing has been
done._ Can any one believe that laws, so wickedly one-sided as
these, were ever honestly designed for the equal benefit of woman
with man? Yet wives are said to have quite a sufficient
representation in the government, through their husbands, to
secure them protection.

But the cruel inequality of the laws relating to woman as wife
are quite outdone by those relating to her as widow. It is these
stricken and sorrowful victims,