[Sidenote:  Law may result in hardship and suffering.]

In cases where the joint accumulations of husband and wife are only sufficient to support the wife in comfort after the death of her husband, the law of descent as it now stands, may result in positive hardship and suffering.  No matter how small the amount of property belonging to a deceased husband may be, one-half of it will descend to his heirs, if he has no children, and the wife be left with no means of support.  Of course the result would be the same in the case of the husband upon the death of the wife, if she held the title to all of the common property.  That this law of descent has not operated to the disadvantage of the husband, but invariably to the disadvantage of the wife, is not due to any defect in either the letter or spirit of the existing law, but is the natural and inevitable result of the custom which gives the husband the title to and the control of the joint earnings of himself and wife.

[Sidenote:  Change or modification needed.]

It is difficult to suggest a remedy or to conceive of any law which would adjust and equalize the relations of husband and wife in the ownership and control of common property during the lifetime of both, but if some just and wise legislator can devise some change or modification of the present law, which will not interfere with the husband’s proper and necessary position as breadwinner and manager of the business of the family partnership, and which will give to the wife control of a portion of the family income while the husband lives, and when the total amount of property held by either, is only sufficient to afford a comfortable support to the other, will after the death of the owner of the property, secure it all to husband or wife, as the case may be, he will add to the laws of the state the one requisite necessary to secure to women equal property rights with men, and a more just distribution of intestate property.