Show RIGHTS OF WIVES POR FOB several years there wab a great outcry because the right of lower dower was abolished in utah the plotters against the peace of this territory never rested until by bf gross misrepresentation congress was in dured to pass a law jaw including among other special provisions the establishment of the right of dower in III this territory it was a stupid piece of work it ii accomplished nothing in the direction pretended t to be desired it simply complicated complicates a transactions in real estate ecate it Is a relic of common law matrimonial despotism which was founded OU on the doctrine of the inferiority of woman and the absorption of the cifes legal identity into that of her husband they twain became one by marriage and he was that one all she had became his and she owned nothing in her own right to secure the widow something to subsist upon after the husbands de oase her third in his estate was secured by law in the shape ot of taj dower bower y in III utah when the right of prop edy was vested in married women and the sex was endowed with the suffrage buffi age the right of dower was abolished the reason for its establishment was removed woman as placed on an equality with man civil affairs and in the elective lse every woman whether married carried aar ried or single was given power ta hold property in her own right to sue aue and be sued to buy and sell to control her own finances to vote at the polls and to be as e el in her sphere as man in his As e could dispose of her individual fl whether r acquired before or after marriage so it was thought n ought to be able to dispose of b Is congress was not made familiar with ith these facts it was represented that the restoration of the dower would be a means of suppressing polygamy and that depriving women here of the ballot would work 1 I a the same way neither was in the nature of things likely to have any effect on the vexed question but in the furore that accod danied the passage of the bill good sense and sound judgment were thrust aside the right of dower was restored and any one who will take the trouble to read those portions of the edmunds tue tucker A er A act c t which relate to it will see what a cumbersome thing it is made and any one who will consider the fact that now a maniec woman may dispose of her property without the consent of her husband while a married man cannot dispose of his realty without the consent of his wife will perceive at a glance its inconsistency conAs tency but what we desire to draw attention to is this utah was denounced with all the fury and venom that her malig ners could pour forth because her legislators had bad abolished the right of dower as though it was the only spot on earth where such a cond condition existed at the same time nevada unless we have mistaken the date had done the same thing without giving women the poll political privileges bestowed upon them in utah and wyoming in 1876 also abolished the right of dower for exactly the same reasons for which it was abolished in utah A short time ago a decision was rendered in the district court courtat at rawlins in regard to this matter A widow sued the assignees of her late husbands estate for her dower in all the realty in their hands basing her action on the dower provisions of the edmunds tucker act the court decided in an elaborate opinion that she had bad no right of dower as it had bad been abolished by the wyoming legislature and the act on which the suit was entered only applied to the territory of utah thus it appears that the abolition of the right of dower was righteous in ih wyoming but desperately pera tely elv wicked in utah now will those indignant scribes and angry lawyers who could not endure the terrible wrong said to have been perpetrated upon the wives of utah enter their protest against the same outrage upon tipon the women of wyoming or does the line without breadth or thickness that divides utah from wyoming change the essential nature of a law jaw that is common to both and make admirable in one what was condemnable in the other and why should congress which assumes supreme power over the territories ri mako make legal in utah that which is illegal in wyoming in handling this I 1 mormon problem as it is called many unjust inconsistent and absurd things have been done and a great many more proposed and gravely considered as well as preachers and writers seem to lose their h heads ead s when they unde undertake arta k p its solution and drift off into the realms that border upon insanity the history of the treatment of the mormon question will be curious reading for the generations to come and sane and liberal minded people will wonder why the nation went daft over the doing a small corn com of peaceable and industrious citizens minding their own business and able and willing to manage their own affairs on the republican principles of local self government and of civil and religious liberty |