WOMAN
696
WOMAN
admitted freely to medical societies and allowed to
join in consultation with male physicians. In 1908
the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Eng-
land admitted women to their diploma and fellow-
ship. In the admission to the profession of law the
path of women has been made more difficult. So late
as 1903 the British House of Lords decided against
the admission of women to the EngMsh Bar, though
some are employed as sohcitors. In the United
States, the State of Iowa allowed women to act as
legal practitioners in 1869, and many of the states,
especially in the Western part of the country, now
admit them to practice. In Canada the Ontario Law
Society decided to admit women to act as barristers
in 1896. As to the third of the learned professions,
divinity, it is obvious that the sacred ministry is
closed to CathoUc women by Divine ordinance (see
WoM-iN IN Canon L.\w). The sects, however, began
to admit women ministers as early as 1853 in the
United States and, at present, the Unitarians, Con-
gregationalists, United Brethren, UniversaUsts, Meth-
odist Protestants, Free Methodists, Christians (Camp-
belUtes), Baptists, and Free Baptists have ordained
women to their ministry. In 1910 the Free Christian
denomination in England appointed a female minister.
Journalism and the arts are also open to women,
and they have achieved considerable distinction in
those fields.
As to the property, widows and spinsters have equal rights with men according to EngUsh law. A married woman may acquire, hold, and dispose of real and personal property as her own separate property. For her contracts her own separate property is held liable, as also for antenuptial debts and agreements, unless a contrary hability can be i)roved. The husband can not make any settlement regarding his wife's property unless she confirms it. If a married woman has separate property she is liable for the support of parents, grandparents, children, and even husband, if they have no other means of subsistence. Laws have also been made to protect a wife's property from her husband's influence. In most states of the Ameri- can Union the proprietary emancipation of women has gone on steadily as in Great Britain. Connecti- cut, in 1809, was the first state to empower married women to make a will, and New York, in 1848, secured to married women the control of their separate prop- erty. These two states have been followed by nearly all the others in granting both privileges. Divorce laws differ in the various states, but the equahty of women with men as to grounds for divorce is generally recognized, and alimony is usually accorded to the wife in generous measure. In the practical appUca- tion of civil and criminal law in the United States, the tendency of late years has been to favour women more than men.
In no field of public endeavour has there raged a fiercer conflict over women's rights than in that of suffrage. In ancient times, even, women had acted as queens regnant, and abbesses had discharged terri- torial duties, but the general idea of women mixing in public life was discoimtenanced. The latter half of tlic nineteenth century saw the movement for the political enfranchisement of women become a serious factor in the body iioHtic. The idea was not entirely new for Margaret Brent, a Catholic, had claimed the right to sit in the Maryland A.ssembly in 1647, and, in revolutionary times," Mercy Otis Wiirren, Abigail Adams, and others had demanded direct represen- tation for women tax-jjayers. In England, Mary Astell in 1697 and Mary Wollstonecraft in 1790 were chaniiiions of women's rights. After the middle of the nineteenth century women's suffrage .societies were formed in (Ireat Britain and the United States, with the result that many men were converted to the idea of women exercising the right of ballot. At the present time women can vote for all officers in Great
Britain, except for members of Parliament. They
have fuU suffrage in New Zealand and Austraha, and
municipal suffrage in most provinces of British North
America. In the United States women have equal
suffrage with men in six States: Wyoming, Colorado,
Utah, Idaho, Washington, and California (1912).
Several other states have adopted woman suffrage
amendments for submission to the people. Thii'ty
states have conferred school suffrage on women, and
five grant tax-paying women the right to vote on
questions of taxation. There is a National American
Women Suffrage Association with headquarters in
New York City, but it must also be noted that in
1912 a national as.sociation of women opposed to
female suffrage was also organized in that city.
The CathoUc Church has made no doctrinal pro- nouncement on the question of women's rights in the present meaning of that term. It has from the beginning vindicated the dignity of womanhood and declared that in spiritual matters man and woman are equal, according to the words of St. Paul: "There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal., iii, 28). The Church has also jealously guarded the sanctity of home life, now so disastrou.sly infringed by the divorce evd, and while upholding the hu.sband's headship of the family has also vindicated the position of the mother and wife in the household. Where family rights and duties and womanly dignity are not violated in other fields of action, the Church opposes no barrier to woman's progress. As a rule, however, the opinions of the majority of Cathohcs seem to hold the political activity of women in disfavour. In England some distinguished prelates, among them Cardinal Vaughan, favoiu-ed women's suffrage. His Eminence declared: "I believe that the extension of the parhamentary franchise to women upon the same conditions as it is held by men would be a just and beneficial measure, tending to raise rather than to lower the course of national legislation." Cardinal Moran in Austraha held similar views: "What does voting mean to a woman? As a mother, she has a special interest in the legislation of her country, for upon it depends the welfare of her children. . . . The woman who thinks she is making herself unwomanly by voting is a sillv creature" (Quotations from "The Tablet", London, 16 May, 1912). The bishops of- Ireland seem rather to favour women's abstention from poUtics, and this is also the attitude of most American bishops, at least as far as public pronouncements are concerned. Several American prelates have, how- ever, expressed themselves in favour of woman suffrage at least in municipal affairs. In Great Brit- ain a Catholic Women's Suffrage Society was organ- ized in 1912.
Whatever may be the attitude of the prelates of the Church towards the political rights of women, there can be no doubt of their earnest co-operation in all movements for the higher education of women and their social amelioration. In addition to the acade- mies and colleges of the teaching sisterhoods, houses for educating Catholic women in university branches have been organized at the Catholic University at Washington and at Cambridge l'ni\ersity in England. A\'omen are multiplying in the learned professions in all English-speaking countries. In work along social lines tlic Church has always had its sisterhoods, who.se self-sacrifice and devotion in the cause of the poor and suffering have been beyond all praise. Of late. Cath- olic women of every station in life have awakened to the great possibilities for good in social work of every kind, and a-ssociations such as the Catholic Women's League in England and The United Irisliwonien in Ireland have been form(>d. In the United States a movement which has the active support of the Arch- bishop of Milwaukee and the approval of the former papal delegate, Cardinal Falconio, is on foot (1912) to
