Volume IV Part 107 (1/2)
The father is the guardian of the persons, estates and education of minor children. At his death the mother is guardian, but if she marries again she loses the guardians.h.i.+p of the property because no married woman can be curator of a minor's estate.
If the husband abandon or fail to support his family, he may be fined and imprisoned and the court may decree their maintenance out of his property. The wife must live where and how the husband shall determine. If she chooses to live elsewhere his obligation to support her ceases. In case of divorce he must support the children, even if their custody is given to the mother.
The ”age of protection” for girls was raised from 12 to 14 years in 1889 and to 18 years in 1895. The penalty was reduced, however, and is at present ”imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of two years, or a fine of not less than $100 or more than $500, or imprisonment in the county jail not less than one month nor more than six months, or both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.”
Between the ages of 14 and 18 years, the girl must be ”of previously chaste character.”
SUFFRAGE: Women possess no form of suffrage.
OFFICE HOLDING: In 1897 the Supreme Court decided that women may hold any office from which they are not debarred by the const.i.tution of the State. They are now eligible as county clerks, county school commissioners and notaries public, and for various offices up to that of judge of the Supreme Court, which are not provided for by the const.i.tution. It is the opinion of lawyers that they may serve on city school boards, and they have been nominated without objection, but none has been elected. Women are barred, however, from all State offices.
Two women sit on the State Board of Charities, but they can not do so on any other State boards.
A number are now serving as county clerks and county commissioners.
The W. S. A. and the W. C. T. U. have secured the appointment of salaried police matrons from the board of police commissioners in St.
Louis, Kansas City and St. Joseph. There are also depot matrons in these cities, and the first two have women guards at the jails and workhouses.
St. Louis has a woman inspector of shops and factories.
OCCUPATIONS: No profession or occupation is legally forbidden to women.
EDUCATION: This was one of the first States in the Union to open its Law and Medical Schools to women. In 1850, when Harriet Hosmer, the sculptor, could not secure admission to any inst.i.tution in the East where she might study anatomy she was permitted to enter the Missouri Medical College.
In 1869 the Law College of Was.h.i.+ngton University at St. Louis admitted Miss Phoebe W. Couzins, and she received her degree in 1872.
The State University and all the State inst.i.tutions of learning are co-educational. The Presbyterian Theological School admits women.
In the public schools there are 5,979 men and 7,803 women teachers.
The average monthly salary of the men is $49.40; of the women, $42.40.
FOOTNOTES:
[350] The History is indebted for material for this chapter to Mrs.
Addie M. Johnson of St. Louis, president of the State Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation.
[351] See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 734, and following, or Wallace's Supreme Court Reports, Vol. XXI.
[352] Other officers elected: Vice-president, Mrs. Kate M. Ford; corresponding secretary, Dr. Marie E. Adams; recording secretary, Mrs.
Sue DeHaven; treasurer, Mrs. Alice C. Mulkey; auditors, Miss Almira Hayes and Mrs. Ethel B. Harrison; member national executive committee, Mrs. Etta E. M. Weink.
Among those who have held official position since 1894 are: Vice-presidents, Mrs. Cordelia Dobyns, Mrs. Amelie C. Fruchte; corresponding secretaries, Mrs. G. G. R. Wagner, Mrs. Emma P. Jenkins; recording secretary, Mrs. E. Montague Winch; treasurer, Mrs. Juliet Cunningham; auditors, Mrs. Maria I. Johnston, Mrs. Minor Meriwether.
[353] In 1901 women obtained a law and appropriation for a State Home for Feeble-Minded Children.
CHAPTER L.
MONTANA.[354]
In August, 1883, Miss Frances E. Willard, national president, came to Montana and formed a Territorial Woman's Christian Temperance Union in b.u.t.te. At this time Miss Willard in her speeches, and the union in its adoption of a franchise department, made the initiative effort to obtain suffrage for the women of Montana. This organization has been here, as elsewhere, a great educative force for its members, training them in parliamentary law, broadening their ideas and preparing them for citizens.h.i.+p. Out of its ranks have come the Rev. Alice S. N.