sses combined, since the Revolutionary War was
fought to secure to every citizen the right of individual
representation.

The Laws regarding women as here given are in no sense of the word a
"brief," but merely present the facts in the language of a layman and
in the simplest and most concise form. Those relating to property are
in the nature of a curiosity. An attorney in San Francisco who was
asked for information as to the laws in general for women in
California, answered that to give in full those of property alone
would require as much space as could be granted in the History for the
entire chapter. It is not possible to make in these introductory
paragraphs an adequate digest of these laws in various States. They
are not precisely the same in any two of the forty-nine States and
Territories, and they offer a striking illustration of the attempts of
law-makers, during the last few decades, to rectify in a measure the
legal outrages of the past, and of their inability in the present
state of their development to grant absolute justice. That must await
the lawmakers of the future, and probably the time when women shall
have a part in selecting them.

All that can be claimed for the statutes quoted herein is that they
are as nearly correct as it has been possible to make them. With but
one or two exceptions, the Attorney-Generals in every State have been
most courteous and obliging when appealed to for assistance. The laws
for women, however, have been so taken from and added to, so torn to
pieces and patched up, that the best lawyers in many States say
frankly that they do not know just what they are at the present time.
Legislatures and code revision committees are continually tinkering at
them and every year witnesses some changes in most of the States.[153]
A very thorough abstract of the laws, made in 1886 by Miss Lelia J.
Robinson, LL. B., a member of the bar in Massachusetts, was of almost
no use in the compilation for this volume because of the endless
alterations since that time. The Legal Status of Women, a condensed
resume issued in 1897 by the National Suffrage Association, has been
covered thickly with pencil marks during the preparation of this
summary, as the reports received from different States have shown the
changes effected in the few years which have since elapsed. A new
book, Woman and the Law, prepared by a lecturer on political science
in one of our largest universities and published in 1901,