the Senate adhered to its
former action.

There have been hearings before the Judiciary Committees of several
Legislatures for the purpose of securing a Reformatory for Women.
Members of the Woman's Aid Society of Hartford and others equally
interested have appeared in its behalf.

The law regarding the property rights of women upon the statute books
of to-day, except one amendment, was passed in April, 1877, and reads
as follows:

In case of marriage on or after April 20, 1877, neither husband
nor wife shall acquire, by force of marriage, any right to or
interest in any property held by the other before, or acquired
after such marriage, except as to the share of the survivor in
the property as provided by law. The separate earnings of the
wife shall be her sole property. She shall have power to make
contracts with third persons and to convey to them her real
estate, as if unmarried. Her property shall be liable to be taken
for her debts except when exempt from execution, but in no case
shall be liable to be taken for the debts of her husband. And the
husband shall not be liable for her debts contracted before her
marriage, nor upon contracts made after her marriage, except as
provided by the succeeding sections.

The dower rights of women married before this date are: A life
estate in one-third the husband's realty and one-half his
personalty absolutely, unless they shall have made together with
their husbands a written contract and recorded the same in the
Probate Records, in which they mutually agree to abandon their
respective common-law rights in the property of each other, and
to claim in place thereof certain other rights as provided by
statute made in 1877 as below. The husband before that date took
the whole of the wife's personal estate absolutely and the use
for life of all her real estate.

Women married on or after April 20, 1877, and those married
earlier, who have made and recorded contracts with their husbands
as above stated, have no dower rights, and their husbands have no
rights by curtesy, but both have, in place of these, rights more
valuable.

Where there are children, the survivor is entitled to one-third
of decedent's real and personal estate absolutely, and in the
absence of children, takes all of the decedent's estate
absolutel