PAIIAPHERNA'LIA. This term comprehends the dress and orna ments of a wife which she occasionally wears, and which she is entitled, under some limitations, to retain after her husband's decease. It cannot be accurately stated how much a wife may claim as her para phernalia, for this will depend on the rank and fortune of the husband and wife. A widow is entitled to retain as paraphernalia ornaments which she has received from her husband, provided she has worn them occasionally. The wife cannot give or bequeath such paraphernalia during her husband's life, nor can her husband bequeath such para phernalia so as to deprive her of them ; but he can sell them or give them. The wife's paraphernalia are liable to the payment of the husband's debts, unless the articles were given to her by a stranger before marriage or after marriage : in such case the articles are con sidered as gifts to the separate use of the wife, and are accordingly neither at the disposition of the husband nor liable to the claims of his creditors ; but if such gifts are to be considered as the separate estate of the wife, they are not properly paraphernalia.
The widow is entitled to her paraphernalia in preference to any claim of leg itees ; and if specialty creditors of her husband have taken her paraphernalia for payment of their debts after the personal estate is exhausted, she has a right to reimburse herself out of the real estate which has descended to the heir.
The term paraphernalia is derived from the Greek parapherna, term which the Roman lawyers adopted to express what in their own language could not be expressed by a single word, and which was expressed by the periphrasis of prater or extra dotem. The parapherna comprised the things which the wife brought to the husband's house, and which were not part of her dos. The common practice at Rome was for the woman to make out a list of such things as she used, clothing, &c., which list was signed by the husband, as an acknow ledgment of receiving theni, or at least of receiving them into his house. This practice, derived from the Roman law, is still in use in some countries of Europe. The husband did not obtain the owner ship of the things included in such list, and in case of a separation, they were restored to the wife : if they were not restored, she could recover them by an action framed according to the circumstances of the case. (' 23, tit., 3, FL 9.) It must be remembered that the Roman dos is a different thing from the English dower, though some English writers on law have confounded them. (Roper, ' Law of Husband and Wife,' "Paraphernalia") [[MARRIAGE.]