THE LEGAL DISABILITIES OF WOMEN
BY CHRISTABEL PANKHURST, LL.B.
THE subject of the legal disabilities of women is complicated by the fact that in addition to the disabilities affecting women generally there are others affecting only married women; for, while marriage leaves the position of men entirely unaffected, except as regards their liability to maintain their families, it means for women a distinct change of position.
The disabilities touching all women, whether married or single, must be first considered. Chief of these, then, is the inability to vote for Parliamentary representatives. Lacking the vote, women lack the power to remove existing injustices or to guard against future ones.
The sex disability in political matters is of quite recent origin. Until 1832 there was nothing to prevent women who possessed the same qualifications as men from exercising the same political rights. Even at the present day a woman may ascend the throne.
The Reform Act of 1832 was the first Act of Parliament to contain a limitation founded on sex.
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