Husbands and Wives : Part 2

The Family and it's Members
by Anna Garlin Spencer

(Page 9 of 22)

Shall the Wife Take the Husband's Nationality? - In the second place, there is now a question of nationality to be settled, a most important one in all its political and legal bearings. The old law made a wife the subject of her husband's national law and took her automatically away from her own country if her husband was born and was citizen of another country. The national allegiance of her birth and her family was thus automatically transferred to that of the man she had married. The suffering of many a woman in the late war when her husband's national allegiance made her legally an "enemy alien" to her own beloved land has sharpened the claim that now, when women have the franchise, they should have complete choice of the body politic to which they owe allegiance. If they wish to marry men of another country they shall have the determination of whether or not they shall become naturalized by his government or whether they shall keep political relation with their own native country. The League of Women Voters is now hard at work to make the national allegiance of women, as of men, a personal matter whether women are married or single. The Federal Bill that is called for by this body would make it incumbent upon all women of foreign birth desiring to use the franchise in the United States to become naturalized, and would protect any woman on marrying from the loss of her own national allegiance, whatever her husband's might be. Surely such a protection of individual citizenship is best for both men and women, whatever their marital state. It is, however, a matter that often comes up for adjustment in international marriages. It is matter of importance that women of foreign birth as well as men coming to this country from other lands should personally seek for full citizenship and not have it handed to them with a marriage certificate. It is equally of importance that no person should lose allegiance to the country of his or her birth and affection simply by reason of marriage. This question of what country shall one continue to belong to after marriage is one for settlement on high grounds of patriotism and civic duty before the marriage is consummated.

Who Shall Choose the Domicile? - In the third place, the matter of chosen domicile is now up for discussion or may be in the near future. The law from time immemorial has given the choice of residence of the family, wife as well as children, into the complete control of the husband and father. A woman may be "posted" in the public press as "leaving her husband's bed and board," and thereby the husband may be released from any responsibility for her debts or support. The inference is that married women have no rights in marriage that can survive independent choice on her part of a residence apart from the husband. Now we have a movement that if successful would place the law behind an equal choice by married men and married women, of domicile, and of all that goes with that possible separation of residence. There are those who declare that separate residence for husbands and wives might keep the flame of romantic love burning longer and more ardently, since "familiarity often breeds contempt" and the absence of the loved one often kindles desire. This is not, however, the general feeling, and the demand for independent choice of domicile has many side-issues not at present fully met, if at all understood, by those who make the demand noted above. The legal right of choice of domicile goes consistently with the legal obligation to "support," The law still makes it incumbent upon a husband to give financial support to his wife commensurate with his earnings or income and still more demands of the father the full support of minor children. Naturally, if he has these obligations to meet, a man must go where he can earn sufficient to meet them. He may be unwise or mistaken in his choice, but, having the responsibility, he must try to meet it as best he can, and among the necessary elements in that trial are free movement to the place or places in which he can find work.

If, therefore, the family are all to be kept in one residence, father, mother and children, this economic aspect of the father's responsibility must be considered. If the father and mother each "gang their ain gait," and decide for business reasons or from personal preference to live in separate places, perhaps far apart from each other, then which one is to have the child or children? The old idea that men should have the power to hold women in wholly unsuitable surroundings, and that no matter what home was offered her a wife must submit and accept, is long outgrown in all the States of this Union. The wife has now the right to help choose domicile, and in point of fact, at least among the older Americans, has often more than an equal share in such determination; but to pass a "blanket law" that at once gave the suggestion of two choices for the family domicile without any qualifying statement of release of men from "support" clauses in the family legislation as those clauses relate to wives might be neither just nor wise. The one in the family upon whom is placed the heavier economic burden for support of children must have much freedom of choice of residence. To restrict that freedom might be to add to present family difficulties without really giving women better chances in marriage. Now, any woman who feels herself oppressed in the matter of domicile has the remedy in her own hands. She can make complaint to a court or she can leave her husband and no one can prevent her, and she can establish a separate establishment if she has the means and make herself eligible thereby to a practical if not a legal divorce. But if the twain stay together, and mean to do so, there are mutual considerations that require an adjustment, and there is now little danger of women having to submit to injustice in the matter of choice of domicile, except in cases where no home together would seem desirable to either or to both.

The matter of choice of domicile is now in the United States so much a mutual question and to be decided upon economic grounds, that it is one of the things that it is well to discuss from the bottom up if two people wish to marry, provided there are any reasons why the relative merits of two or more places of residence are involved in the issue. The reasonableness and generosity of the average American man quite equals the like qualities in the average American woman; hence the domicile question may well be left in abeyance in any struggle for "equality of rights between the sexes" and confined to personal debate and decision; but in that personal debate and decision it should have recognized place.

Shall the Married Woman Earn Outside the Home? - The fourth question, now sometimes a burning one, and one most intimately related to that of choice of domicile, is that concerning the continuance of professional or business connection by the woman after marriage. Shall I keep on with my work or not? This is the problem that besets many a woman when the question of marriage with the chosen one is imminent. For the woman who is a teacher, and already established in the educational field in the city or town where both the man and the woman concerned find it easy to choose to live after marriage, there is a probability that she can continue her work after marriage with comparative ease. The laws that used to penalize the woman teacher who married are rapidly ceasing to operate, and although the common legal requirement for a two years' vacation from public school employment when a child is to be born may exert a strong influence upon the birth-rate (either for or against) the fact that marriage does not disqualify for teaching and that teaching is so near the home interest may lead to much continuance of that type of professional work after marriage. The question, however, is not one for the woman alone to solve. Many women find that the ideal of "taking care of his wife," which long ages of law and custom have ingrained in man's nature, may stand in the way of her earning outside the home after marriage. To be settled right this question must be settled by full consent of both parties and that consent may be hard to get from the man who fears that he will be considered incapable if he "lets his wife earn." What is to be done in such a case? That must be determined by the possibility of compromise on both sides.

Copyright, 1923 by J.B. Lippincott Company

About the Author

Anna Garlin Spencer (1851-1931) was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island.