activity and checks her efforts to make her way. The notion that irresponsibility is an advantage is an entirely mistaken one; an irresponsible person cannot be dealt with in business matters, and is shut out of all the usual independent ways of obtaining a livelihood. Authorship and servitude are the only paths really open to married women; in every other career they find humiliating obstacles which it needs both courage and perseverance to surmount.

Married women rank among the "persons in subjection to the power of others;" they thus come among those who in many cases are not criminally liable; "infants under the age of discretion," persons who are non compotes mentis (not of sound mind), and persons acting under coercion, are not criminally liable for their misdeeds. A married woman is presumed to act under her husband's coercion, unless the contrary be proved, and she may thus escape punishment for her wrongdoings: "Constraint of a superior is sometimes allowed as an excuse for criminal misconduct, by reason of the matrimonial subjection of the wife to her husband; but neither a son, nor a servant is excused for the commission of any crime by the command or coercion of the parent or master. Thus, if a woman commit theft, or burglary, by the coercion of her husband, or even in his company, which the law primâ facie construes a coercion, she is dispunishable, being considered to have acted by compulsion, and not of her own will" ("Comm, on the Laws of England," Broom and Hadley, vol. iv., p. 27). "A feme covert is so much favoured in respect of that power and authority which her husband has over her, that she shall not suffer any punishment for committing a bare theft, or even a burglary, by the coercion of her husband, or in his company, which the law construes a coercion" (Russell "On Crimes," vol. i., p. 139). "Where the wife is to be considered merely as the servant of the husband, she will not be answerable for the consequences of his breach of duty, however fatal, though she may be privy to his conduct. C. Squire and his wife were indicted for the murder of a boy;" he had been cruelly treated by both, and died "from debility and want of proper food and nourishment;" "Lawrence, J., directed the jury, that as the wife was the servant of the husband, it was not her duty to provide the apprentice with sufficient food and nourishment, and that she was not guilty of any breach of duty in neglecting to do so; though, if the husband had allowed her sufficient food for the apprentice, and she had wilfully withholden it from him, then she would have been guilty. But that here the fact was otherwise; and therefore, though in foro conscientiæ the wife was equally guilty with the husband, yet in point of law she could not be said to be guilty of not providing the apprentice with sufficient food and nourishment" (Ibid., pp. 144, 145). It is hard to see what advantage society gains by this curious fashion of reckoning married women as children or lunatics. Some advantages, however, flow to a criminal husband: a wife is not punishable for concealing her husband from justice, knowing that he has committed felony; a husband may not conceal his wife under analogous circumstances: "So strict is the law where a felony is actually complete, in order to do effectual justice, that the nearest relations are not suffered to aid or receive one another. If the parent assists his child, or the child his parent, if the brother receives the brother, the master his servant, or the servant his master, or even if the husband receives his wife, having any of them committed a felony, the receiver becomes an accessory ex post facto. But a feme covert cannot become an accessory by the receipt and concealment of her husband; for she is presumed to act under his coercion, and therefore she is not bound, neither ought she, to discover her lord" (Ibid., p. 38). The wife of a blind husband must not, however, regard her coverture as in all cases a protection, for it has been held that if stolen goods were in her possession, her husband's blindness preventing him from knowing of them, her coverture did not avail to shelter her.

Any advantage which married women may possess through the supposition that they are acting under the coercion of their husbands ought to be summarily taken away from them. It is not for the safety of society that criminals should escape punishment simply because they happen to be married women; a criminal husband becomes much more dangerous to the community if he is to have an irresponsible fellow-conspirator beside him; two people—although the law regards them as one—can often commit a crime that a single person could not accomplish, and it is not even impossible that an unscrupulous woman, desiring to get rid easily for awhile of an unpleasant husband, might actually be the secret prompter of an offence, in the commission of which she might share, but in the punishment of which she would have no part. For the sake of wives, as well as of husbands, this irresponsibility should be put an end to, for if a husband is to be held accountable for his wife's misdeeds and debts, it is impossible for the law to refuse him control over her actions; freedom and responsibility must go hand in hand, and women who obtain the rights of freedom must accept the duties of responsibility.

A woman has a legal claim on her husband for the necessaries of life, and a man may be compelled to support his wife. But her claim is a very narrow one, as may be seen by the following case:—A man named Plummer was indicted for the manslaughter of his wife; he had been separated from her for several years, and paid her an allowance of 2s. 6d. a week; the last payment was made on a Sunday, and she was turned out of her lodgings on the Tuesday following; she was suffering from diarrhoea, and on the Wednesday was very ill. Plummer was told of her condition, but refused to give her shelter; the evening was wet, and a constable meeting her wandering about took her to her husband's lodgings, but he would not admit her; on Thursday he paid for a bed for her at a public-house, and on Friday she died. Baron Gurney told the jury that the prisoner could not be charged with having caused her death from want of food, since he made her an allowance, and under ordinary circumstances he might have refused to do anything more; the only question was whether the refusal as to shelter had hastened her death. The man was acquitted. A wife has also some limited rights over her husband's property after his death; she may claim dower, her wearing apparel, a bed, and some few other things, including her personal jewellery. Her husband's power to deprive her of her personal ornaments ceases with his life.

To redress the whole of the wrongs as to property, and to enable justice to be done, it is only necessary to pass a short Act of Parliament, ordaining that marriage shall in no fashion alter the civil status of a woman, that she shall have over property the same rights as though she were unmarried, and shall, in all civil and criminal matters, be held as responsible as though she were a feme sole. In short, marriage; ought no more to affect a woman's position than it does a man's, and should carry with it no kind of legal disability; "marital control" should cease to exist, and marriage should be regarded as a contract between equals, and not as a bond between master and servant.

Those who are entirely opposed to the idea that a woman should not forfeit her property on marriage, raise a number of theoretical difficulties as to household expenses, ownership of furniture, &c., &c. Practically these would very seldom occur, if we may judge by the experience of countries whose marriage laws do not entail forfeiture on the woman who becomes a wife. In the "Rights of Women," quoted from above, a very useful summary is given of the laws as to property in various countries; in Germany these laws vary considerably in the different states; one system, known as "Gutergemeinschaft" (community of goods) is a great