goods and chattels under the statute of frauds; the contract of marriage being thus, for the first time in New York, made of equal importance with that of the sale of goods to the value of one hundred dollars.  Much difference of opinion exists between the South and the North upon this point, the Southern view being more remarkable for chivalry, and the Northern for good sense.  Southern members of the National Conference of Commissioners claimed that any such law would result in disaster to many young girls; that if they had to travel ten, twenty, or thirty miles to find a minister or justice of the peace they would in many cases dispense with the formality or be impatient of the delay; and that anyhow on general principles any unmarried man who had seen an unmarried young woman two or three times ought to be engaged to her if he was not.  The Northern Commissioners, on the other hand, were desirous of protecting the man, and especially his legitimate widow and children, from the female adventuress, which view the South again characterized as cynical.  There is probably something to be said for both sides.

Coming finally to political rights, the subject of women’s suffrage alone might well be reserved for a separate chapter, if, indeed, it is to be disposed of by any one mind; but at least the actual occurrences may be stated.  As mentioned above in our chapter on political rights, it now exists, by the constitutions of four States; and has been submitted by constitutional amendment in several others and refused.  No actual progress, therefore, has been made in fifteen years.  As to office-holding, the constitutions of Missouri and Oklahoma—­one most conservative, the other most radical—­both specify that the governor and members of the legislature must be male.  In South Dakota women may hold any office except as otherwise provided by the constitution.  In Virginia, by the constitution, they may be notaries public.  In all other States, save the four women’s-suffrage States, the common law prevails, and they may not hold political office.  The first entirely female jury was empanelled in Colorado this year (1910).  In some States, however, statutes have been passed opening certain offices, such as notaries public, and, of course, the school commission.  Such statutes are, in the writer’s opinion, illogical; if women, under a silent constitution, can hold office by statute, they can do it without.  It is or is not a constitutional right which the legislature, at least, has no power to give or withhold.

Generally in matters of education they have the same rights both to teach and be taught as males.  Indeed, Idaho, Washington, and Wyoming declare that the people have a right to education “without distinction of race, color, caste, or sex,” and that is practically the case by the common law of all States, though there is nothing to prevent either coeducation or segregation in schools.  The recent tendency of custom is certainly in the latter direction, Tufts, Wesleyan, and other Eastern colleges having given up coeducation after trial, and the principle having been attacked in Chicago, Michigan, and other universities, and by many writers both of fact and fiction.