ABSTRACT
378 Property of Mamed Women. rBD;rll.bwomall'. n.YIe". L AUIUll 16th, h7 •• marriage, must militate very seriously against the interests of society. I think that every man is iuterested in this question, not only because it relates to a partnership the most serious and most solemn any man or woman can enter into, but because it is perpetuating in English Jaw a great disability, and a great wrong. He is interested, also, in a lower point of view, because the law, as it stands at present, operates in the direction of inducing women possessed of property to abstain from marriage. Now, it would not be desirable in the lowest interests of men that women who possess property shl)uld be those who have the strongest objection to marriage. The law is seriously defective from that point of view. From a third point of view, men are at disadvantage when they have entered into toe marriage partnership-the property which they possess together cannot be'generally nsed to the utmost advantage by the married people. It often happens that when a woman has, to her own great injury, surrendered an her property into the hands of her trustees, the hands of the married pair are injuriously restrained, owing to the fact that the possession of the property has been virtually surrendered, and that they are unable to deal with it to the best account. So far, then, -all men, as well as all women, are deeply interested in this matter. I have one word more with regard to the nation at large on this question. I am not supposed generally to have a very great affection for the Turkish Empire, and it does seem to me somewhat disgraceful that we should be held in every part of the world to be giving 01U' moral support and friendship to the Turks i but on the other hand I am inclined to think that the friends of Turkey might retort upon WI that it is somewhat disgraceful that in this one respect the law of Turkey should be so superior to our own-that in 'Turkey a woman does retain posIession of her property after marriaee,
