HUSBAND AND WIFE (ante).—A little more than thirty years ago the legal status of husband and wife in respect to each other and to society, in all or nearly all the states of the American union, was nearly the same with that in England. Under the common law, wives were often subjected to .great hardship. Half a century ago the public attention was called by a few earnest people to the essential injustice of these long-established doctrines, the key to which is found in the maxim that the legal existence of the wife is merged in that of her husband. The agitation, though discountenanced and ridiculed for a time, took fast hold upon the public conscience, and found expression in numerously signed petitions to. the legislatures for a reform of the obnoxious laws. While the claim of the agitators that women should be permitted to vote and be made eligible to office was lightly regarded, conscientious legislators would not refuse to listen when wives and mothers besought them to redress odious and inhuman abuses. Women who had made a study of the subject were accorded a hea• ing before legislative committees. New York was the first state to respond to the demand for reform, but the example was followed by others in rapid succession, until now the common law doctrine that a wife's legal existence is merged in that of her hus band is regarded with universal disfavor as a relic of barbarism. The laws of the states differ in some respects from each other, but as a general rule the real and personal prop erty possessed by a woman at the time of her marriage, or which she may acquire thereafter, remains her own, free from any interest of the husband or any claim of his creditors. In some of the states, but not in all, she is permitted to convey her property
by deed, or to bequeath or devise it by will. In New York and a few other states, she is allowed to manage her property as if single, to make contracts concerning it, to engage in any trade or business, to appropriate her own earnings, to sue and be sued, and to maintain actions in her own name for injuries done to her person, property, or character. As truly, as wittily said, that in the eye of the common law husband and wife are one, and that that one is the husband; but under the new legislation the wife has the same standing before the law as her husband. In the western and southern states the wife has a secure interest in the homestead, and cannot be dispossessed with out her consent. The new legislation has not changed the common law presumption that it is the Inisband's duty to support his family, to furnish a home for his wife, and provide her with such means of subsistence as aro suitable to his Station in life. As a general rule it is still the right of the wife to procure the necessaries of life upon his credit. She may leave him, if she chooses, and there is no law to compel her to return; but in that case, her right to a support from him will cease. If she be enticed away or seduced, the husband may recover for any pecuniary damages thereby incurred. The old rule, that lie is responsible for any crime committed by her in his presence and by his direction, remains in force. In many of the American states husbands and wives may be witnesses against each other, except as to facts communicated in marital con fidence.