SELFISH INTENTIONS - K-REx - Kansas State University

Kansas law from the formation of the state had protected the rights of women to own property,
but this addition to the divorce statutes made the protections more specific.
Due to the work of Clarina Nichols, Kansas became a state with liberal laws for women.
Women had the right to own property, retain custody of the their children and vote in school
elections. If Kansas women found themselves in a horrible marriage situation, the liberal Kansas
divorce statutes included numerous grounds for divorce. Kansas women like Mrs. Selts and Mrs.
Holtzgang used these laws to divorce the husbands who had abandoned them and secured their
finances. The liberal laws of Kansas provided more security for women than did the
conservative laws of the East Coast states, but perhaps more to the point, those laws allowed for
new possibility under the law: female individualism.
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