SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1897. THE TYRANNY OF WOMAN.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9669, 6 March 1897, Page 6

SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1897. THE TYRANNY OF WOMAN.

That woman is is in some way or other oppressed by man seems to be one of the most generally received assumptions of latter day oivilniation. No one can deny the existence of single oases of oppression; still less that it is only within the years of the present generation that women have received most of the rights to which modern public opinion believes them justly entitled. But though woman in these lands is now politically, personally and socially for practical purposes on the same looting as man, we still hear constantly repeated the old phrases and catch-words about "emancipation" and "slavery." Women in English speaking countries are already emancipated as, far as is good for any self-respecting citizen; and we will proceed to show that in English law, which lags far behind colonial legislation on behalf of woman, it is man, and not woman, whose rights are con- ; temned and ignored* The revolt of . woman has been from the legal point of view only too successful. It is ; asserted by* experienced lawyers that " down to the minutest details of law 1 and administration, civil and criminal, women are iniquitously privileged at the expense of men." A little evidence on this point may not be thrown away upon a community which greatly prides itself on its " advanced" notions concerning the rights of ; woman. To take first the privileges of women in connection with matrimonial law. In case of breach of promise of marriage, heavy damages can be gained by a woman who can prove her case, but 1 a man suing on the same -grounds • would be laughed out of Court. Even 1 the letter of the law would be of no avail against the bias of Judge, jury 1 and public, always enlisted, at least in 1 its most voluble side, in favour of 1 woman as against man. A woman 'may accept presents from a 1 man to whom' she pretends to be "engaged," and he has no \ recovery in practice. Butamanwho ; lately omitted to rapay a "loan" of this ' sort from a woman received five years* ' pmal ■ iemutdc for obtaining money , by false pretences. As to maintenance, [ the case is clearly summed up in the - remark made by a lady in J896 to her ' husband—on the other side of the J Court—" There is no law wbjeb. com- \ pels mc to obey or honour you, but • there is a law that yon must keep mc." r The Act of 1884 abolished imprison--1 ment as a means of enforcing an order | against the wife to return to her r husband. The famous Jackson dei oision prevents the man from com- " polling the woman to return. But . if a woman drives her husband away , by making his life a burden to t him, she can imprison him and » get all his property sequestrated | for her support, unless he will r obey an order of the Court to return t to her. As to property, a wife has 1 absolute and unfettered control over it, \ and by the Married Women's Property ' T Act she can always will her property , away from her husband. But a wife • can always sue her husband for main- • tenanee, and so get as much of his 1 property as the Court thinks fit t inalienably settled on her. As to - " loans," a wife can proceed against a 9 husband, and there are recorded cases ' in which a wife has bankrupted her v husband on these grounds. But a t husband is always supposed to " give " • not "lend" money to bis wife,and t he has no such recovery. But the a husband is not the only personage t inconvenienced By these privileges of j the wife. Even though she is living • apart from him and her children, and o is released from all" duties to them, she

eeps her right; of exemption f_ oni I eizure of property for debt. • I Let us look at the matter f eorri anoth.ii lointof view. A wife 13 not liaft ß or the civil misdemeanours she ma? iorauiifc, but her husband is. gj ?rank Lookwood once said that" one las the deep consolation of knowin» hat if Mrs Jackson utters slander Mr° Fackson oau be sued." For the p uf '. loses of punishment the wife is legally i klmost as non-existent as she v.__ inder the feudal system. If a woman jommi-s any crime in the presence of ler husband, she is by legal fiction issumed to be acting under hi* • coeroion," and he alone is liable. On tho negative side—that 13 Vith respect to divorce —a woman's matrimonial privileges remain the envy and despair of many a hapless husband. It costs a man at least'jfiM to get a divorce ; and this is to most men a prohibitive price. Any woman can get a summary separation for the asking from any Polioe Court, with art order for maintenance out of tho man. 3 earnings, involving when necessary the confiscation of hi 3 property. Under the pressure of " publio opinion '• uniformly ranged on the side of woman, a working man earning 189 per week has been ordered to pay 12g a week for life to a woman described as "a olamorous and malignant shrew." To the ordinary working man the costs of an appeal to the Divorce Court makes such a step impossible. He might as well be asked to spend a few thousands in getting a private Act put through Parliament on his behalf. But if a womau ohooses to go to the High Court, her husband has to pay her solicitors in advanoe and maintain her during the trial, though hor ohargesmay be absolutely false. Suppose that the husband succeeds in getting a divorce for adultery, and reoeive3 heavy damages from the co-respondent. The Court can actually confiscate these damage for the support of the divorced wife, who, as a cynical lawyer remarked, " has prudently selected a rich man.? And short of this final offence there are countless ways in which a wife 13 privileged to injure hor husband almost without the possibility of defence or retaliation on hia part. She can get a judicial separation for insult, foi drunkenness, for negleot, when proved against him. But no mat) can separate from his wife on these grounds and no Magistrate can help him. ••Neglect," by the way, can mean anything. An actor employed at the theatre comes home late, in the usual professional order of things, and his wife can prove "neglect" and separate on those grounds. If a husband speaks disrespectfully to his wife before servants she can leave his house, take away his children, and confiscate his property for maintenance. And such " neglect" as is entailed in coming home lata from a Club has been held to exonerate a wife who admitted adultery, and the .. usual separation and confiscation order followed. As to bigamy, Sir Henri Hawkins not long ago settled a. woman's bigamy case by advising the lady to return to her husband, not nuin*, ber one be it understood, but number two. And in oase of more direct and premeditated injury to the husband, 5 the same immunity is enjoyed. Women are not punished for false charges on oath, nor for perjury in denying or admitting guilt, nor for conspiring to procure the husband's adultery as a. ground for divorce. As to murder the procedure is generally uniform. The. charge can be cut down to manslaughter, in which case a trifling penalty is inflicted, or the murderess, if convicted on her own confession, finds her death sentence remitted and her friends agitate for her release. The Maybriok case has many parallels in the history of English law. Twc English lawyers have recently amused themselves by collecting such record* We will not invite our readers to linger over the case of the lady who, in 1894, soaked her husband in oil and then Ret fire to him with a lighted paper and got six years for manslaughter when he died; or the exploit of another lady, in 1804, who 1 knocked her husband out of a cart and. then backed the horses twice carefully over him, so that both his leg 3 were fractured and he died, and she WM convicted of manslaughter. Our own favourite case is that of a young person who in 1898 threw a lighted latnp at her husband with the result of killing both him and her child, She received three days 1 imprisonment, which of course meant that she ?«J the Court at once, exclaiming, wa*dat the sympathy of the Court, that she was " a childless widow alone in the world." Surely the time has come Jot men to reverse the old Hebrew prayer, and lament that Providence has Been fit not to make them women. We do not desire to follow the subjeoj through the malodorous paths of criminal law. It suffices to say that for fraud, libel, " way-laying," seduction of a minor, perjured ac-usation and black-mailing by women, the difficulties of redress are for the man . enormous and insuperable, it con* 1 victed on any criminal charge, women as a matter of practice enjoy constant [ privileges as compared with men in ' the way of sentence, prison treatment and pardon. In Civil Law we find repeated the same exceptional immu* ' nities. No married woman can be arrested for debt, nor oan she be sued for breach of contraot, nor for bringing charges of immoral conduct against a man, though last is highly actionable if attempted by a man against a woman. Many further details might be cited, but enough has been written to ' justify some resentment of the legal oppression under which the Englishman now cowers. "The legal subjection of women in England has gone and long gone. It is succeeded by a 1 state of sordid subjection of the man to a biassed publio opinion, to a hysterical Press, and to sentimental administrators of a corrupted law.' ' There may be two opinions about the comment just quoted; there can be I only one upon the facts. As far as ; English law is concerned there seems 1 good ground for the assertion lately * '. made that the great social problem has 1 been solved by conceding to woman r all rights and imposing on man aU '~ duties.

--ii to Mr. Gladstone, and during a* yybole of ono Cold, dreary winter's afternoon these two " grand old men " ILfc themselves comfortable before a vLing fir o in the libr &*-y- while Mr. K-tW talked with " the General" about the Salvation Army, and with that -ever-keen interest for acquiring information, and that wonderful power for rapidly assimilating it, which aro Imiong h- 3 mosfc remal - k able endow■JJg to he managed to learn all S e main facts about the organisation, its work in the past, and j{B plans for the future. The conversation opened somewhat quaintly, yet in a way which shows Mr. Gladstone's ♦act and delicncy of feeling. "I suppose," be said, "in addressing you as General, I use the title to which you are accustomed, and which harmonises with your own feelings ?" jjie General replied, Yes, that was the appellation ordinarily given to him, so be thought it duly signified his position and that he accepted it for that t6&ao n. Mr. Gladstone then proceeded to question the General as to the method by which the authority of the array was maintained, and expressed no little surprise at the number of English officers who held command jn foreign countries. As a great financial expert he was naturally much Interested in tho monetary results of the Army's operations, and on being presented with a statement as to the probable annual revenue his surprise we are told seemed very great indeed. Turning from the material details of tho organisation of the Army, the conversation drifted to the importance attached by tbe Army to the experimental aspect of religion. general Booth incidentally remarked that they were more at home, and often more successful, in dealing with the ignorant and the poor, than with those who aro hotter educated, and in the moro comfortable circumstances of life. Here, we are told, Mr. Gladgtovm made some very interesting and thoughtful observations, which sounded like spoken reflections on truths that already had long possession of his mind, concerning the illiterate and unprejudiced condition of the poor being mentally favourable to that limple obedience to the truth neoeslary to salvation. " The affluence, the tastes, tho habits and the examples of the age," he said, "are among the most deadly enemies with which religion has to contend." In reply to a further remark by j General Booth, Mr. Gladstone continued—" There is nothing, I fear, easier of acquisition than the aspirations and the language of devotion, while living a life the opposite of all that they imply." ■ Naturally there is not in the information given to Mr. Gladstone by Genoral Booth much which is new to those who have studied the history and methods of the Army. Our readers will bo interested, however, in learning what he said about the appointment of his successor—a point which evidently struck Mr. Gladstone as of vital importance. General Booth explained that it was the first duty of the General for the time being to nominate his successor in writing, such nomination being placed under cover in the hands of the solicitors for the Army, whose duty it was to deposit it, unopened, in a place of security. That its contents need only be known to the General himself, whoever he might be, he having the power to change the appointment at any time, as his lodgment might direct. Mr Gladstone listened to these statements, and then asked whether there were any arrangements made which would give legal force to such a procedure. Was there a deed ? " Yes," the General replied, " a deed drawn after much thought, settled by eminent counsel, and enrolled in the High Court." " That is well," Mr Gladstone responded. Then he seemed struck with the absolute uniqueness of the arrangement. It was a peculiar position, he said, that the Army had taken up. Even the Pope, he suggested, was elected by a conclave of cardinals, and he thought we must go back to the sixteenth century to find an example of a system of personal nomination by the person occupying the post of authority siniilartotheonethe Army had chosen. He was still further interested when -bis guest mentioned a soheme, now being completed, for providing against thepqssible contingency of a General passing away who had neglected the .appointment of his successor, or who, for some oalamitous reason, had been proved incapable for, or unworthy of, his position, and for selecting a new Wh&ral in an assembly of all the vommissioners throughout the world. fhe General named one or two of the Possibilities that might occur, and Mr. Oubstone added, "Yes, and the possibility of heresy would come under that category." Like most people who have come "» personal contact with Mr. Gladstone, General Booth was greatly struck with his intellectual vitality and the charm of his manner. A balvatioriyst would naturally ask, "Is he a Christian?" The General replies to this delicate question by saying that he had not much opportunity of judging, but the impression produced on his mind very forcibly was that among the many things carefully f ™ered and experimentally known to W. E. Gladstone were the governing influences of the Holy Spirit and the saving grace of God."