Part 7 (1/2)
In case of a divorce, whether partial or absolute, obtained by the wife, the husband is required to pay _alimony_ for her support during the rest of her life, even if she should re-marry. A wife from whom a husband obtains a divorce cannot be required to contribute in any way to his support.
Although the law has opened wide the door for all women to engage in business, it still discriminates in their favor in many particulars. No woman can be arrested in a civil action, or held by an execution against the body, except in cases in which it is shown that she has committed ”a wilful injury to person, character, or property,” or has been guilty of such an evasion of duty as is equivalent to a contempt of court. Thus a woman engaged in business cannot be arrested in an action for a debt fraudulently contracted.
All women judgment debtors, whether married or single, enjoy certain exemptions from the sale of their property under execution, which, in the case of men, extend only to a householder; that is, a man who has, and provides for, a household or family.
Every married woman is the joint guardian of her children with her husband, with equal powers, rights, and duties in regard to them with her husband. It is only the survivor, be it father or mother, who possesses the right to appoint a guardian by deed or by will. She has now equal rights with the father over her children.
As matter of practice, the courts when called upon to award the custody of minor children in cases of separation, determine the question with reference solely to the interests of the child, with a strong leaning in the mother's favor.
A husband's creditors have no claim upon the proceeds of a policy of insurance upon his life for the benefit of his wife, unless the annual premiums paid by him shall have exceeded five hundred dollars. The proceeds of such a policy are exempt from execution for any debt owed by the wife.
The statutes contain a large number of special provisions for the benefit of female employees in factories and mercantile houses. In the city of New York, if any man fails to pay the wages due a female employee up to fifty dollars, not only is none of his property exempt from execution, but he is liable to be imprisoned upon a body execution, and kept in close confinement without the privilege of bail. A similar rule is applicable in Brooklyn.
No woman can be called upon to perform military duty.
No woman can be required to serve upon any jury.
No woman can be called upon by the sheriff or any peace officer to a.s.sist in quelling a disturbance or making an arrest.
CHAPTER VI.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES.
The fifth count in the Suffrage Declaration of Sentiments reads as follows: ”He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow she receives but scanty remuneration.”
The women who wrote that in 1848, in common with the majority of American women, were presumably being well provided for in their own homes, by men whose boast it was that their wives and daughters did not need or care to seek employment elsewhere. It is true that at that time, because of this supposed advantage, as married women they could not have engaged in separate business that would involve the making of contracts or distinct bargain and sale. To the world the husband was the wife's financial manager. But at that time the wife could enter any of the employments as a paid clerk or worker. This count seems more surprising in view of the fact that, writing only three years later, to a Suffrage convention that met in Akron, Ohio, Mrs. Stanton said: ”The trades and professions are all open to us; let us quietly enter and make ourselves, if not rich and famous, at least independent and respectable.” Two years later still, Colonel Thomas W. Higginson wrote to another Suffrage convention that met in Akron, Ohio: ”We complain of the industrial disadvantages of women, and indicate at the same time their capacities for a greater variety of pursuits. Why not obtain a statement on as large a scale as possible, first of what women are doing now, commercially and mechanically, throughout the Union, and secondly, of the embarra.s.sments which they meet, the inequality of their wages, and all the other peculiarities of their position.” This would have been most valuable and interesting, and it would seem that something of the kind should have preceded the sweeping accusation made in the Declaration; but there appears in their ”History” no evidence of its having been done. In 1859 Caroline H. Ball said, in addressing a Suffrage convention: ”I honor women who act. That is the reason that I greet so gladly girls like Harriet Hosmer, Louisa Landor, and Margaret Foley.
Whatever they do, or do not do, for Art, they do a great deal for the cause of labor. I do not believe any one in this room has an idea of the avenues that are open to women already.” Then follows a list of the trades then pursued by women in Great Britain. Of the United States she said: ”Of factory operatives in 1845 there were 55,828 men and 75,710 women. Women are glue-makers, glove-makers, workers in gold and silver leaf, hair- weavers, hat and cap-makers, hose-weavers, workers in India-rubber, paper- hangers, physicians, picklers and preservers, saddlers and harness-makers, shoe-makers, soda-room keepers, snuff and cigar-makers, stock and suspender-makers, truss-makers, typers and stereotypers, umbrella-makers, upholsterers, card-makers, photographers, house and sign-painters, fruit- hawkers, b.u.t.ton-makers, tobacco-packers, paper-box makers, embroiderers, and fur-sewers.” She added: ”In New Haven seven women work with seventy men in a clock factory (at half wages).” And in summing up she said: ”The great evils that lie at the foundation of depressed wages are that want of respect for labor which prevents ladies from engaging in it, and that want of respect for women which prevents men from valuing properly the work they do. Make women equal with men before the law, and wages will adjust themselves.”
Women are equal with men legally and wages have not adjusted themselves, and the law has had no control over the feelings and opinions of men and women. Those who were large-minded enough to respect labor asked no warrant from legislation, and those who were small-minded enough to undervalue woman's work because it was woman's, do so still despite the statutes, and would if women voted at every election. Men were equal with each other before the law, but that did not compel the respect of foolish men, nor did their wages adjust themselves to equality on that account. If there were more men working in a trade in a given place than the demand for their products required, the wage would fall, and so it must with women. But reasons entered into the market value of woman's work that did not enter into that of men. Mrs. Dall mentions but one trade in which the wages were lower for women, and there they competed with men. Those seven women working with the seventy men in New Haven were not expected to be called upon to support a family by their earnings. If they were girls, in the natural course of things they were expected to leave the work whenever they were ready to marry. If one of them married one of the seventy men, the firm of employers would lose her services entirely; but the man who married her would be depended upon to work more steadily than before, and he would also have more incentive to do better work in order to command still higher wages. The long cry of Suffrage has not been able to bring about ”equal pay for equal work,” even where legislation to that effect has been introduced into Trades Unions and State laws. This has still rested, and must rest, with the employer, and his action must be governed by quality and demand and supply. The attempt to secure ”equal wages”
among men has resulted in bringing down the wages of all to the point of the poorer workers. The general laws of trade, like those of government, are based on principles of universal equity, and however strenuously temporary deviations may be pressed, they return at last to the natural position. This is not saying that there is not great injustice toward labor by capital, and toward capital by labor, but that the foundation principles tend to govern the mutual relations, and forcing that is contrary to these cannot be permanently successful. If the work of women for any reason is unequal, the wages will be, and the mere fact that some particular women work for some particular time the same number of hours, and as well as do the men in the same establishments, does not do away with the fact that women's work in general is not as steady as men's, and is not expected to meet the same emergency of family support. No one can believe more fully than I in equal wages for work that is really equal; but it seems to me that private contract, and not public action, must regulate the matter of special wage.
Government reports show that the average age of the working-girl in this country is but twenty-two years, and that after twenty the number falls off rapidly. Unskilled labor must forever take the place of that which is withdrawn, which is another and most valid reason for lower wages. That lower wages are the result of natural causes, and not of unnatural feeling, is shown in many ways. Woman teachers at the West, where teachers were needed, received as good pay as did men. In New York I heard Superintendent Jasper, I think it was, say: ”I am in favor of equal pay for equal work, for the two s.e.xes; but we cannot give it here. We can get twice as many good women teachers as men teachers, and when we need men we must pay at a higher rate.” This does not extend to the highest grade of teachers, superintendents, and professors in colleges, where men compete with one another. There the compensation is the same for equal work. In the highest forms of work women compete on equal terms. In literature women are paid, for books or articles, the same prices that men receive.
In art this is true. It is the picture or statue or musical ability that counts. Singers receive as much for the soprano as for the tenor voice.
Actresses are paid according to ”drawing” power, and woman dancers and acrobats, alas! command the highest price.
There is, among others, this fundamental difference between the business life of men and women. For men who pursue occupations outside the home, there are women to manage that home. For women who pursue occupations outside the home, there are, not men, but other women, to manage the home.
The final domestic care of the world must come upon women. The final attention to social life must come upon women. In behalf of the women who are constrained, or who choose, to sacrifice their share in this part of the world's necessary work, some other women must do double duty. That this rule has seeming exceptions does not make it less the universal rule.
Nothing, not even ”industrial emanc.i.p.ation,” is gotten for nothing.
When the count cited above from the Suffrage indictment was written, the factory system had been established in this country twenty-six years. From the Revolution down to 1822, the women of the land had been busy in the homes making the household and personal wear. Sixteen years after the introduction of machinery into Lowell, Ma.s.s., 12,507 operatives were at work there, the majority of whom were women, American women and girls. New York State also had its mills. ”f.a.n.n.y Forester” (afterward Mrs. Judson) worked in a mill near her home in that State. She went there, as did hosts of New England girls, Lucy Larcom and Harriet Robinson among the number, to relieve the home, but especially to gain the means of education, for themselves and for their brothers and sisters. The towns afforded better libraries, and there were evening cla.s.ses that they could attend, things not to be had in the farming districts. In 1850, in twenty-five States, the factory census reported 32,295 men and 62,661 women workers. In 1860 there were 46,859 men and 75,169 women. Hosiery machinery at this time was giving employment to three times as many women as men. But the emigrant, and not the American man, had been the means of turning out the native woman worker; it was the foreign-born woman who worked for ”unequal pay.”
In 1846, the sewing-machine had been invented. Previous to that time, 61,500 women were employed making boys' clothing by hand for the market, which was twice the number of men so employed, while the woman tailor was as familiar a figure as the dress-maker in every village, where she went from house to house.
In 1861 came our Civil War, with its awful sacrifice of young men. With that also came the heavy money loss, and consequent inability of many men, even where life and limb had been spared, to support their families in the homes. That great conflict, with its stern necessities, its lessons of mutual helpfulness, its military discipline, which taught the value of organization, did more than could ten thousand conventions, even had they been working with knowledge and system, to instruct women in love for work for others. It nerved them to labor for self-support and for the support of those who were now dependent upon them' because the strong arm had fallen and the willing heart had ceased to beat. Before the year 1861 had closed, there were a million women in this country earning their daily bread by honorable labor. As time went on, and the slaughter continued, and the nation's debt piled up, and prices became almost fabulous, more and more women asked through blinding tears, ”What can I do?” Every trade was thrown open to women, and the laws had placed the married woman where she could compete on equal terms with her unmarried sister, even though she still had the advantage of a husband's support.
A great pother has lately been made by Suffrage workers in New York because a bill was proposed prohibiting married women from teaching in the public schools. This has been the unwritten law in many places for years.
The practice was adopted to offset the maintenance of married women.
Teachers should receive more pay, but so should poets and artists, and we all hope the time will come when brain work will have more tangible market value.