Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-04-20
WIVES AND HUSBANDS,
The Latter Not Responsible for the
Formers MiSd0img1elmteresfi De
casion ol the Supreme Court Of New
Hampshircs

The Latter Not Responsible for the
Former's Misd0ings-Inserestin DE-
castOn Of the Supreme Court of New
Hampshirc.
From the Boston Herald. Anil Is.
Up In New Hampshire Mrs. Harris and her
husband sued Mrs. Webster and her husband be-
cause 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 mar
ried men as well as the wrongs Of married wo-
men, Is long and interesting Judge Foster,
who drew it, discusses the changes which have
taken place in the legal relations OF hush and
and wife, and the responsibilities therefrom
arising.
Under the English common law the wife could
neither sue nor be sued apart from her husband
The old doctrine was that IMAM and wife are
the same flesh" Herein an old writer said:
THE common law shaketh hands with divini-
tie, an Illustration, says Judge Foster, 'of the
habit representing every established fact which
Injunction of religion" So, under the common
law, the married woman's contracts were void.
her legal personality being extinguished. Pc
truchio declared:
81 win 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 morse, my OK, my ass, my anything.,'
AS Judge Foster states it. the woman being
thus utterly within her husbands control, his
chattel, his "ox," he became personally and
solely answerable for her torts. as for the tres
passes OF his other domestic cattle; and. of
system than that which declared all her con-
tracts absolutely void. Such was the social and
legal status of married waman centuries ago;
and the change Of her condition before the law
seems to be much less In England than in New
Hampshire. The influences of Christianity and
more widely dffused and higher g, stem of
moral and religious education have gradually
ameliOrated woman's social condition, and ele-
waited her to the 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 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 GER
tainly in New Hampshire more than anywhere
else, have the legal distinctions between the
| sexes been swept away. He continues
THUS, by progress in the same direction, by
changes religious, social. customary legisla-
tive, and judicial, the rule of the common law
has been abolished and obliterated; and it is no
longer possible to say that in New Hampshire a
married woman is household slave or q chat
tel. 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 q slave or a
servant. The rule now is that her legal exits
tence 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 viO-
lation OF her personal rights, but she may enter
into legal contract with her husband and en-
force 1T by suit against him.
What follows? Simply that, since the wife's
property is not her husbands. her earnings are
not his, her legal subsection 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 inno-
cent 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 husbands of these female
parties are strangers. in law, to the proceeding,
and that the demurrer should be sustained. .
Ia New Hampshire. then, if nowhere else. the
henpecked husband can sit quietly and watch
the triumphal progress of the female suffrage
movement and all the other movements Ifhe
does lose little something he also gains His
wife is not his ''slave," as she might be if he
lived in some more conservative states but if
sh lets her tongue at its highest rate of vi
bratiOn against her neighbors he cannot be
sued. Happy Mr.. Webster. Unfortunate Mrs.
Harris