Women May Not Be Coddled

In their campaign for equal rights over the years, women have also won equal responsibilities. Three recent court decisions point out a few of their obligations:

qed While employed as an office manager for a Colorado company that services oil wells, James Stryker embezzled more than $280,000 from the firm. His wife knew nothing about the crime until Stryker committed suicide ten days after the company accused him of the theft. Even so, the U.S. Tax Court has just ordered Mrs. Stryker, who has since remarried, to pay more than $80,000 in back taxes on the embezzled funds. Stryker had not reported any of the income on the couple's joint tax returns. But under the Internal Revenue Code, declared the court, a woman who files a joint return "stands in the shoes of her husband" and is therefore liable for any taxes owed by him. "While we sympathize with the petitioner's plight and we recognize the harshness of the result," said the court, "the inflexible statute leaves no room for relief."

qed Helen Gayle Moore of Montebello, Calif., had custody of her three children, while her ex-husband contributed to their support. But Jack Moore not only gained custody by agreement with the mother in 1967; he later convinced a court that he was entitled to financial aid. Moore's paper-products company had just gone out of business. More over, although his older daughter had married, the younger one needed money for college. Shouldn't his exwife, who nets $380 a month from her department-store job, help support the two children remaining in his care? Indeed she should, ruled a judge, who ordered her to pay Moore $80 a month for the children. Though such decrees are rare, a number of states now recognize the principle that a woman must pay, in similar circumstances, when the child's welfare requires it.

qed During a medical-malpractice suit in a Kentucky federal district court last year, Judge Henry Brooks refused to seat any women on the jury. His motive was pure chivalry. The plaintiff, a state convict named Ernest Abbott, was suing two prison doctors for failing to detect a cancer in its early stages. At the time, he suffered from advanced cancer of the penis and groin, and Judge Brooks wanted to spare women the details of medical testimony that might be "distasteful." Abbott lost his suit, and later died. Now the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has ruled that the administrator of his estate is entitled to an other trial. A judge may excuse a specific woman juror on the ground that testimony will upset her, said the court. But he violates the 14th Amendment if he sweepingly excludes, on his own initiative, any "well-defined community groups, women in particular." Concluded the court: "It is common knowledge that society no longer coddles women from the very real and sometimes brutal facts of life. Women, moreover, do not seek such oblivion. They not only have the right to vote but also the right to serve on juries."

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