ead of
coming up to the standard of a husband, is a mere dependent ... and
leaves to her the support of the family, it would be contradictory of
fact and an absurd construction of the law to say that he, and not
she, is the head of the family."

This is believed to be the first legal decision of the kind and has
created wide discussion.

CHAPTER LXIX.

WASHINGTON.[456]

The history of woman suffrage in Washington begins with the passage of
a bill by the Legislature, giving women the full rights of the ballot
on the same terms as men, which was approved Nov. 23, 1883, by the
Territorial Governor, William A. Newell. This was due principally to
the efforts of a few individuals, both men and women, as there was no
organization.[457]

The municipal elections of the following spring brought the first
opportunity to exercise the newly-acquired right. The women evinced
their appreciation of it by casting 8,368 ballots out of the whole
number of 34,000, and the leading papers testified to the widespread
acknowledgment of the strength and moral uplift of their vote.

The general election of November, 1884, naturally showed a larger vote
by both men and women, the latter casting 12,000 out of the 48,000
ballots. It was estimated at this time that there were less than
one-third as many women as men in the Territory. When the scattered
population, the long distances and the difficulties of travel are
taken into consideration it must be admitted that women took the
largest possible advantage of the recently granted privileges.

For the next two years they continued to use the franchise with
unabated zeal, and newspapers and public speakers were unanimous in
their approval. In a number of instances the official returns, during
the three-and-a-half years they possessed the suffrage, exhibited _a
larger percentage of women voting than of men_. Chief Justice Roger S.
Greene of the Supreme Court estimated that at the last election before
they were disfranchised four-fifths of all the women in the Territory
went to the polls.

Many women have remarked upon the increased respect and courtesy of
the men during this period. Mrs. Elizabeth Matthews, who removed from
New Orleans to Port Townsend in 1885, states that, although accustomed
from babyhood to the deferential gallantry of the men of the South,
she never had dreamed that any women in the world were receiving such
respectful consideration as she found in Washington Te