through misfortune, are made to feel the iron teeth of the law, they regret that they had not used their power to secure permanent protection under just laws, rather than to have trusted the transient favors of individuals to shield them in life's emergencies.
The law securing to married women the right to property,[1] inherited by will or bequest, passed the legislature of Pennsylvania, and was approved by the governor April 11, 1848, just five days after a similar law had been passed in New York. Judge Bovier was the mover for the Pennsylvania Married Women's Property Law. His feelings had been so often outraged with the misery caused by men marrying women for their property, that he was bound the law should be repealed. He prevailed on several young Quakers who had rich sisters, to run for the legislature. They were elected and did their duty. Judge Bovier was a descendent of the Waldenses, a society of French Quakers who fled to the mountains from persecution. Their descendants are still living in France.[2]
The disabilities and degradation that women suffer to-day grow out of the spirit of laws that date from a time when women were viewed in the light of beasts of burden. Scarce a century has passed since women were sold in this country with cattle. In the Pennsylvania Gazette for January 7, 1768, is the following advertisement:
In the same paper of the following week occurs this yet more extraordinary announcement:
In one century of growth a woman's sewing machine was better protected than the woman herself under the old common law:
