mphill, editor with her father of the
Abbeville _Medium_; Mesdames Marion Morgan Buckner, Daisy P. Bailey,
Florence Durant Evans, Lillian D. Clayton, Gertrude D. Lido, Cora S.
Lott, Abbie Christensen, Martha Corley and Mary P. Screven; Dr. Sarah
Allen; Misses Claudia G. Tharin, Iva Youmans, Annie Durant, Kate Lily
Blue and Floride Cunningham.

LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND LAWS: In 1892 Mrs. Virginia Durant Young
petitioned the Legislature for her personal enfranchisement, adopting
this method of presenting the arguments in a nutshell, and as "news"
they were widely published and commented on. At this session Gen.
Robert R. Hemphill, a stanch advocate, presented a bill in the Senate
to give women the franchise and the right of holding office, and
brought it to a vote on December 17; yeas, 14, nays, 21.

In 1895 numerously signed petitions for suffrage were sent to the
Legislature by the women of Fairfax, Lexington and Marion. The right
of petition was also frequently used by the members of the State W. C.
T. U.

In 1896 Mrs. Young addressed the Legislature in behalf of Presidential
Suffrage for women.

In 1892, '93, '95 and '98 the laws were improved in regard to married
women's property rights, allowing them to hold real estate
independently of their husbands, restraining husbands from collecting
debts or wages owing to their wives, and making the wife's signature
necessary to the legality of mortgage.

In 1895 was enacted by the Constitutional Convention that, "The real
and personal property of a woman, held at the time of her marriage, or
that which she may thereafter acquire, either by gift, grant,
inheritance, devise or otherwise, shall be her separate property, and
she shall have all the rights incident to the same, to which an
unmarried woman or a man is entitled. She shall have the power to
contract and be contracted with, in the same manner as if she were
unmarried."

Dower prevails but not curtesy. If either husband or wife die without
a will the other has an equal claim on the property. Should there be
one or more children, the survivor receives one-third of the real and
the personal estate. If there are no lineal descendants, but
collateral heirs, the survivor takes one-half of the entire estate. If
there are no lineal descendants, father, mother, brother, sister,
child of such brother or sister, brother of the half-blood or lineal
ancestor, the survivor receives two-thirds of the estate and the other
thir