1936-1944: (The St.

1936-1944: (The St. Aude Project — the 1944 Marriage Wage Law Known by the LFAS as the St. Aude Project Because Senator Denis St. Aude Originally Sponsored the Petition in the National Legislature in 1936, Calling for Married Women’s Uncontrolled Wages — When Women Were Married by the State They Became the Legal Minors of Their Husbands and Were Required to Give Any Earnings to Their Spouses, Alice Garoute Characterizing Married Women’s Financial Condition as Enslaved People’s Unpaid Labor or Indentured Servitude — the St. Aude Project as One LFAS Committee Report Communicated “Came to Liberate”): The 1944 marriage wage law was known by the LFAS as the St. Aude Project because Senator Denis St. Aude originally sponsored the petition in the national legislature in 1936. It called for married women’s uncontrolled wages. When women were married by the state, they became the legal minors of their husbands, and as a result were required to give any earnings they made to their spouses. Alice Garoute characterized married women’s financial condition as enslaved people’s unpaid labor or indentured servitude. The St. Aude Project, as one LFAS committee report communicated, came to liberate — the language was deliberate: the law was not reform but emancipation, the married woman freed from a bondage that the revolution had abolished for the enslaved but preserved for the wife.