was hailed
with joy, but was found to include a number of laws which had been
repealed within the past four or five years and to omit some very
important ones which had been enacted during this time, as well as to
contain frequent mistakes in regard to others.

These instances show the impossibility of an absolutely authentic
presentation of the laws for women in their constantly changing
condition. Although it was the intention to close this History with
1900, in several States, notably Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York,
Illinois and Wisconsin, laws have been passed since that date of
sufficient importance to demand a place. During the two years of its
preparation the entire codes of property laws for women in
Massachusetts and Virginia have been revolutionized.

An amusing part of a difficult task has been the reluctance of men to
admit the existence of laws which are conspicuously unjust to women,
the admission being frequently accompanied by the statement that it is
the intention to change them at an early date, or that it would only
be necessary to call the attention of the Legislature to them in order
to secure their repeal. Even women themselves in States where the
statutes especially discriminate against them, have written that these
must not be published unless those from all the others are given.
Whether this is due to State pride or personal humiliation is not
clearly evident.

The one encouraging feature is that in almost every State decided
progress is shown since 1848, when in New York and Pennsylvania the
first change was made in the English Common Law which then everywhere
prevailed, and which did not permit a married woman to hold property,
to buy or sell, to sue or be sued, to make a contract or a will, to
carry on business in her own name, to possess the wages she earned, or
to have her children in case of divorce. An examination of the laws in
the following chapters will show that the wife now may own and control
her separate property in three-fourths of the States, and in the other
fourth only one Northern State is included. In every State a married
woman may make a will, but can dispose only of her separate property.
In about two-thirds of the States she possesses her earnings. In the
great majority she may make contracts and bring suit. The property
rights of unmarried women always have been nearly the same as those of
unmarried men, but the Common Law declared that "by marriage husband
an