The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1882-05-19
WIVES AND HUSBA. DS.
The Later Not Responsible for the For.
maor's misdotngs-
fBoston Herald.

nseooEm8A
boston Herald
Up in New Hampshire Mrs. Harris
and her husband sued Mrs. Webster
and her husband because the latter
woman had spoken slanderous words Of
the former. Mr.. Webster demurred,
saying he had done no wrong, and didn't
care to be brought into court because
his wife was alleged to have used her
tongue too freely, and the Supreme
Court has sustained the demurrer. The
decision which involves the rights of
married men as well as the wrongs OF
married women, is long and interesting.
Judge Foster who drew il discusses the
changes which have taken place in the
legal relations OF husband and wife, and
the responsibility therefrom arising.
Under the English common law the
wife could neither sue nor be sued apart
from her husband. The old doctrine
was that "man and wife are the same
flesh" Herein an old writer said ""The
common law shaketh hands with the
divinitie," an illustration says Judge
Foster, "of the habit of presenting
every established fact which liz too bad
to admit of any other defense as an in
junction of religion" So, under the
common law, the married woman's con-
tracts were void, her legal personality
being extinguished. .Petruchio declared:
at will be master OF what is mine own:
She is my goods my chattelS she Is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my OK, my ass, my anything"
AS Judge Foster states it, the women
being thus utterly within her husbands
control, his chattel, his COX" he became
personally and solely answerable for her
torts, as for the trespasses of his other
domestic cattle f; and, of course, the law
could pursue no other consistent system
than that which declared all her con-
tracts absolutely void. Such was the
social and legal status of married
woman centuries ago and the change
of Der condition before the law seems to
be much less in England than in New
Hampshire. The influence of Chris
tianity and q more widely diffused and
higher system of moral and religious
education have gradually ameliorated
women's social condition and elevatedh her
to a state of dignity and importance she
possesses to-day. Like all the changes
of advancing civilization, this change
has been very gradual, but it has been a
steady march from slavery to freedom.
Herbert Spencer says that in the United
States women have reached higher
status in the social structure than any
where else, and Judge Foster adds that
it is equally true that in many OF the
States, certainly in New Hampshire
more than anywhere else, have the legal
distinctions between the sexes been
Omant uou Ha ooOtipnaS
"Thus, by progress in the same direc-
ton. by changes religious, social, Gus
tomary, Legislative and judicial, the rule
of the common law has been abolished
and obliterateG and is no longer posi-
BILE to say that in New Hampshire n
married woman is household slave or
chattle, or that in New Hampshire the
conjugal unity is represented solely by
the husband. BY custom and by statute
the wife is now joint master of the
household and not slave or servant.
The rule now is that her legal existence
is not suspended. So practically has
the ancient unity become discovered and
dissolved that the wife may not only
have her separate property. contracts,
credits, debts, wages, and causes of
separate action growing out of viola
tion of her personal rights, but she may
enter into legal contract with her hus-
band and enforce it by suit against
him"
What follows? Simply that, since
the wife's property is not her husbands,
her earnings are not his, her legal SUBJ
lection to him no greater than his to her,
no reason remains for holding him liable
for her wrong. doing any more than for
making her responsible for his. So when
the Court came to pass upon the case
before it, the question being why Mr..
Webster, an innocent man, should be
held responsible for the torts of Mrs.
Webster, the Court was obliged TO say
that, having done no wrong neither he
nor his property could be holden for any
act of his wife, and "that the husband
of these female parties are strangers, in
law, to the proceeding, and that the
demurrer should be sustained" In
New Hampshire then, if nowhere else,
the hen pecked husband can sit quietly
and watch the triumphal progress of the
female suffrage movement, and all the
other movements. If he does lose lit
tie something, he also gains. His wife
is not his "slave," as she might be if he
lived in some more conservative State,
but if she lets her tongue run at it's
highest rate of vibration against her
neighbor she cannot be sued. Happy
Mr.. Webster. Unfortunate Mrs. Harris.