well-informed woman would choose for a residence. The laws of Louisiana
were based, not on the English common law, but on the Code Napoleon,
which regards women merely as a working, breeding, domestic animal.

"There is one thing that is not _French_," thundered the great Napoleon,
closing a conference on his famous code, "and that is that a woman can
do as she pleases."

[Illustration: A "WOMEN'S RIGHTS" MAP OF THE UNITED STATES]

The framers of Louisiana's laws were particular to guard against too
great a freedom of action on the part of its women. Toward the end of
Mrs. Jefferson Davis's life she added a codicil to her will, giving to a
certain chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy a number of very
valuable relics of her husband, and of the short-lived Confederate
Government. Her action was made public, and it was then revealed that
two women had signed the document as witnesses. Instantly Mrs. Davis's
attention was called to the fact that in Louisiana, where she was then
living, no woman may witness a document. Women's signatures are
worthless.

In Louisiana your disabilities actually begin when you become an engaged
girl. From that happy moment on you are under the dominance of a man.
Your wedding presents are not yours, but his. If you felt like giving a
duplicate pickle-fork to your mother, you could not legally do so, and
after you were married, if your husband wanted that pickle-fork, he
could get it. Your clothing, your dowry, become community property as
soon as the marriage ceremony is over, and community property in
Louisiana is controlled absolutely by the husband. Every dollar a woman
earns there is at her husband's disposal. Without her husband's consent