ases.

The husband is liable for necessaries for the support of the family,
and can be sued therefor by any one who supplies them.

The "age of protection" for girls was raised from 12 to 14 years in
1896. The penalty is death or imprisonment in the penitentiary not
less than five nor more than twenty years.

SUFFRAGE: Women possess no form of suffrage.

OFFICE HOLDING: No offices are filled by women except that there is
one physician at the Western Insane Asylum and, through the efforts
of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, a matron in the woman's
ward of the State prison.

Women are employed as clerks in various county offices. They can not
serve as notaries public.

OCCUPATIONS: Under the ruling of the courts, a woman can not practice
law. No other profession or occupation is legally forbidden to women.

EDUCATION: For the higher education the women of Virginia must go
outside of their State.[454] The State Superintendent of Free Schools
and the Secretary of the State Board of Education both express great
regret at this fact, and the hope that all institutions of learning
will soon be opened to them. Secretary Frank P. Brent says:

We have as yet no women acting as school superintendents or
members of school boards, but I feel sure the Constitutional
Convention will make women eligible to one or both of these
positions.

Last year I had the honor to decide that in matters pertaining to
the educational affairs of this State, the wife may be regarded
as the head of the family, although the husband is living; and
this decision has just been reaffirmed by the United States Court
of Appeals.[455]

Women are admitted to several of the smaller colleges. The
Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, and the Woman's College at
Lynchburgh, both under the same presidency, rank well among
institutions for women only. Miss Celestia C. Parrish is
vice-president. Hampton Institute, for negroes and Indians, is
co-educational.

The public schools make no distinction of sex. There are 2,909 men and
5,927 women teachers. The average monthly salary of the men is $32.09;
of the women, $26.39.

FOOTNOTES:

[454] The State Universities are closed to women only in Virginia,
Georgia and Louisiana, and the undergraduate departments in North
Carolina.

[455] The decision of the court was "When an intelligent, active,
industrious, frugal woman finds she has married a man who, inst