as obliged to place
it in the hands of a trustee, to whose will she was subject. If she
contemplated marriage, and desired to call her property her own,
she was forced by law to make a contract with her intended husband,
by which she gave up all title or claim to it. A woman, either
married or unmarried, could hold no office of trust or power. She
was not a person. She was not recognized as a citizen. She was not
a factor in the human family. She was not a unit; but a zero, a
nothing, in the sum of civilization.

To-day, a married woman can hold her own property, if it is held or
bought in her own name, and can make a will disposing of it. A man
is no longer the sole heir of his wife's property. A married woman
can make contracts, enter into co-partnerships, carry on business,
invest her own earnings for her own use and behoof,--and she is
also responsible for her own debts. She can be executor,
administrator, guardian or trustee. She can testify in the courts
for or against her husband. She can release, transfer, or convey,
any interest she may have in real estate, subject only to the life
interest which the husband may have at her death. Thirty years ago,
when the woman's rights movement began, the status of a married
woman was little better than that of a domestic servant. By the
English common law, her husband was her lord and master. He had the
sole custody of her person, and of her minor children. He could
"punish her with a stick no bigger than his thumb," and she could
not complain against him.[141] But the real "thumb" story seems to
have originated with a certain Judge Buller of England, who lived
about one hundred years ago. In his ruling on one of those cases of
wife-beating, now so common in our police courts, he said that a
man had a right to punish his wife, "with a stick no bigger than
his thumb." That was his opinion. Shortly after this some ladies
sent the judge a letter in which they prayed him to give the size
of his thumb! We are not told whether he complied with their
request.]

The common law of this State held man and wife to be one person,
but that person was the husband. He could by will deprive her of
every part of his property, and also of what had been her own
before marriage. He was the owner of all her real estate and of her
earnings. The wife could make no contract and no will, nor, without
her husband's consent, dispose of the legal interest of her real
estate. He had the income of h