Case Name: MOLLIE ROSENCRANTZ, Plaintiff in Error, v. TERRITORY OF WASHINGTON, Defendant in Error
Court: Washington Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Washington
Decision Date: 1884-07
Citations: 2 Wash. Terr. 267
Docket Number: 
Parties: MOLLIE ROSENCRANTZ, Plaintiff in Error, v. TERRITORY OF WASHINGTON, Defendant in Error.
Judges: 
Reporter: Washington Territory Reports
Volume: 2
Pages: 267–283

Head Matter:
MOLLIE ROSENCRANTZ, Plaintiff in Error, v. TERRITORY OF WASHINGTON, Defendant in Error.
Married women residing with their husbands are competent grand jurors.
The Code of 1881, in prescribing tbe qualifications of grand jurors, had reference not only to the class of persons who, at the time of its enactment, possessed the qualifications prescribed, but also to all other persons who should afterwards become possessed of the qualifications.
■Chapter 183 of the Code of 1881 removed the common law disabilities of a wife as a member of the family, and placed her in a position of equality with the husband.
Under this statute the husband and wife conjointly constitute the head of the family, and each, therefore, in contemplation of law, is a householder.
The constitution of a Grand Jury is not impaired by making married women members thereof.
Turner, Associate Justice, dissenting, holds that a married woman living with her husband is not the head of the family, and therefore not competent to serve on a Grand Jury; and, further, that had the Legislature of the Territory attempted to r. nder married women qualified jurors, it would have violated constitutional guarantees which secure juries, as known to the common law, composed exclusively of men.
Error, to Third Judicial District, holding terms at New Tacoma.
The plaintiff in error was indicted by the Grand Jury of the county of Pierce, at the May term of the District Court of the Third Judicial District of Washington Territory, holding terms at Tacoma, charged with the crime of keeping a house of ill-fame, resorted to for the purposes of prostitution.
It appeared that the following members of the Grand Jury that found and returned the indictment, Mrs. D. E. Lister, Mrs. F. Barlow, Mrs. Elizabeth Monroe, Mrs. E. J. Ross, and Mrs. Jernette Fuller, were, at the time of the summoning and impaneling of the Grand Jury, and at the time of the finding and returning of the indictment, each of them, married women, residing with their husbands, and maintained by them. And that, at all of said times, David Lister, one of the members of said Grand Jury, was the husband of the said Mrs. D. E. Lister, who. was living with him as his wife, and being maintained by him as such; and that he was the head of his family, and the only householder therein.
The plaintiff in error moved to set that indictment aside, because-the Grand Jury was not selected, drawn, summoned, or impaneled as prescribed by law. This motion was overruled, and the plaintiff in error duly excepted, and her exception was allowed.
A trial was then had, and the plaintiff in error was found guilty, and sentenced to pay a fine of $400 and the costs of the action.
Struve, Haines & McMichen, for Plaintiff in error.
No person shall he held to answer in any Court for any alleged crime or offense, unless upon an indictment of the Grand Jury. (Code of Washington, Sec. 764.)
By the term Grand Jury was meant, at the time of the enactment of this statute, a common law Grand Jury, which was a jury of men. (Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, Title Jury; Blackstone’s Commentaries, Cooley’s, Vol. 2, *362; Thompson and Merriam on Juries, Secs. 463, 464.)
Under the statute in force at that time, only qualified electors and householders were competent to serve as members of a Grand Jury. (Code of Washington Territory, Sec. 2078.)
None but male citizens were then qualified electors. (Code of Washington Territory, Sec. 3050.)
The qualifications of Grand Jurors have not been changed since the enactment of that statute, unless it be by implication, in the act approved November 23, 1883, entitled “ an Act to amend Section 3050, Chapter 238, of the Code of Washington,” by i which the word “ male ” is omitted from the section. (Laws of 1883, pp. 39, 40.)
The law does not favor the repeal of a statute by implication. (Sedgwick on the Construction of Statutory and Constitutional Law, pp. 105, 106, 98, and note a; Bowen v. Lease, 5 Hill N. Y. 225; Rawson v. Rawson, 52 Ill. 63; Casey v. Harned, 5 Clark, Iowa, 1; The People ex rel. Freeman v. Barr, 44 Ill. 198; McCool v. Smith, 1 Black. 459; Henderson’s Tobacco, 11 Wallace, 652; Dwarris on Statutes, 674, et seq.)
The intention of the Legislature must govern in the construction of a statute. (Sedgwick on the Construction of Statutory and Constitutional Law, 194, et seq., and cases cited).
In this case the manifest intention of the Legislature was to simply amend the election law so as to give to women the right of suffrage.
This is a statute in derogation of the common law, and must be construed strictly. (Melody v. Reab, 4 Mass. 471; Gibson v. Jemy, 15 Mass. 205; Commonwealth v. Knapp, 9 Pick., Mass. 496; Wilbur v. Crane, 13 Pick., Mass. 284; Dwelley v. Dwelley, 46 Me. 377; Burnside v. Whitney, 21 N. Y. 148; Schuyler Co. v. Mercer Co., 9 Ill. 20; Easterly’s Appeal, 54 Penn. 192.)
The construction involving the exercise of a doubtful power •will not be readily adopted in the absence of direct words, when the words used admit of another construction free of all question in regard to the power. (Phill., N. C. L., 279.)
The Legislature, in making qualified electors eligible as grand jurors, referred to those persons who were, at the time of the adoption of the statute qualified, and did this, not because voters were supposed, from the mere fact of possessing the right of suffrage, better qualified as grand jurors, but used the expression only for more convenient reference, as meaning “ American male citizens above the age of twenty-one years.”
This meaning of the term “ qualified electors ” has never been enlarged by legislation.
Grand Jurors must be not only “ qualified electors,” but also “ householders.” (Code of Washington, Sec. 2078.)
A householder is the “ head of a family,” or the master or person who has charge of or provides for it. (Code of Washington, Sec. 842 ; Abbott’s Law Dictionary, Title Homestead; Winfield’s Adjudged Words and Phrases, p. 302 and cases cited ; Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, Titles Householder, Household ; Smythe on Homestead and Exemptions, Sec. 532; Thompson on Homestead and Exemptions, Sec. 65, and cases cited; Woodward v. Murray, 18 Johnson, 400; Griffin v. Sutherland, 14 Barb. 456; Bowne v. Witt, 19 Wend., N. Y. 475.)
The construction of this term in statutes of exemption is adopted where it occurs in jury acts. (Thompson and Merriam on Juries, Sec. 174.)
By the common law, the husband and wife were regarded as one person, and the wife’s legal existence and authority were in a certain degree lost or suspended. (2 Kent’s Commentaries, 129; 3 Wait’s Actions and Defenses, 635, and cases cited.)
The common law is the rule of decision in this Territory, so far as it is not repugnant to or inconsistent with the Constitution and Laws of the United States, and the Organic Act and Laws of the Territory. (Code of Wash., Sec. 1.)
The husband is the natural and legal head of the family. (Bishop on the Law of Married Women, Secs. 45, 46, 47, 48 and 49, and cases cited.)
The only changes that have been made regarding the rights of husband and wife, as compared with what they were at common law, are found in Chapter CLXXXIII of the Code, and this act by its title does not purport to affect anything but “the property rights of married persons,” and can have reference to nothing else.
Section 2398, which provides that “ all laws which impose civil disabilities upon a wife, which are not imposed or recognized as existing as to the husband, are hereby abolished,” cannot be construed as embracing any wider range than the title of the chapter, that is, “ Property Rights.” Moreover, the liability to jury duty is not a right, but a duty. (Thompson and Merriam on Juries, Sec. 39; Bragg v. The People, 78 Ill. 330; Friery v. The People, 54 Barb. 319.)
The husband is the trustee of the community as regards ail commnnity property, and is recognized as the head of it. (Code of Wash., Secs. 2409, 2410.)
G. M. Bradshaw, Prosecuting Attorney.
The Legislature of Washington Territory has full power and competent authority to regulate the mode in which it will bring the offenders against its laws to trial; and it has, by laws well calculated to accomplish that purpose, made rules governing the'Courts at every step in criminal proceedings.
Under the statute formerly in force, “ only qualified electors and householders were competent to serve as members of a Grand Jury.”
The qualifications of grand jurors have not been changed. “ Qualified electors and householders ” was and is the language used by the Legislature to define the qualifications of grand jurors.
It is true that the law does not favor repealing a statute by implication, but in certain classes of cases it permits it'; and, if that question entered into this discussion, that would be enough to sustain our view in this case.
But the amendment to Section 8050 does not repeal or even amend Sectipn 2078. The last named section describes certain classes of persons who are competent to act as grand jurors in this territory. But instead of describing such classes by name, as “ men,” “ women,” or “ citizens,” they are described as “ qualified electors ” and “ householders.”
Such was the Section 2078 before the amendment to Section 3050, and it is precisely the same now. It always was broad enough to take in whomsoever became a qualified elector. The young man under twenty-one years of age was not included in it, but that period passed, he was at once included in the class of electors who might become a juror, and if a householder, then a grand juror. The citizen of a foreign country was not competent as a grand juror, because he was not an elector. Upon the performance of certain conditions he became an elector, and as a consequence, competent as a juror.
The principle for which we are contending is laid down by the Supreme Court of Missouri, in McKnight v. Crinnion, 22 Miss. 559.
It Is claimed that the grand jurors objected to were not householders; and therefore were not competent.
It seems to us that the plaintiff in error must be mistaken as to what a householder is. He cites Sec. 842, but his statement ■of it is just the reverse of what we think was intended by the Legislature. It does not say that “ a householder is the head <of a family,” as stated by plaintiff, but simply, “ there shall also be exempt from execution and attachment to every householder, being the head of a family,” etc., clearly implying that there may be householders who are not, in the technical sense, heads of the family. A person is a householder who may fairly and reasonably be said to be in the charge, and having devolved upon him or her the duty of caring for, maintaining, and supporting a family; as a general rule the husband, no doubt, is the householder; but too often these burdens and duties are cast upon the wife, and in such case she is the householder, and is «entitled to whatever privileges belong to the “ head of a house.” Whatever may be thought of the above proposition as a rule of. law, it is what the law ought to be.
The general tendency of legislation in this territory has been to abolish all distinction between the civil and property rights «of men and women; and in those respects the whole system of the common law has been swept away, and in its stead a system of laws has been adopted which, although in some respects not perfect, is yet susceptible of being so construed and enforced as to secure to married women all that was clearly intended to be secured to them.

Opinion:
Opinion by
Hoyt, Associate Justice.
Plaintiff in error was indicted by a Grand Jury, composed in part of married women living with their husbands. She took seasonable objection to said Grand Jury, on the ground that said women were not competent grand jurors, and her objection having been overruled, she has brought the case here, and Assigns the overruling of her said objection as error.
The only important question raised by the record is the single one, as to whether or not, under the laws of this Territory, married women living with their husbands are competent grand jurors.
The Code of 1881 provides that all electors and householders ¡shall be competent grand jurors, and it is claimed by plaintiff In error, that this must be held to apply to only such persons as were thus qualified at the time such provision was enacted, and not to such as should thereafter become endowed with such requisite qualifications; but to us it seems clear that the Legislature intended simply to prescribe what classes of persons in ¡society, as it was then, or should be thereafter constituted, should be called upon to perform such jury duty, and that -whenever a person by any change in his condition was brought within such requirements, he at once became liable to perform such duty, and that likewise where, by a change in the law, a •class of persons was brought within such requirements, the members of such class at once became liable to society for all the obligations incident to the class of electors and householders of which they had thus become members.
Were such married women, then, electors and householders ?
That they were electors, is fully conceded, leaving only the ¡single question, as to their being householders, for consideration. We shall not be aided in this discussion by attempting to single out a definition of the word householder, as under the facts disclosed by this record the indictment herein must be sustained, If it is possible that a married woman living with her husband, as such, can be a householder within the meaning of such term, ¡as used in our act as to grand jurors; and this must depend •entirely upon the change wrought in family relation by chapter 188 of the Code of 1881; for of course it is conceded that under the common law, the relation of the wife to the husband was ¡such, that while she was living with him she was not such a householder, as her identity was largely lost in that of her husband, and she had no right to be heard as to the disposition of the property or children that resulted from the marriage, so long as her husband survived.
This harsh rule of the common law has been, however, gradually changing, and from time to time various restrictions have been imposed upon the obsolete right of control of the husband ; and the right of the wife to participate in such control came to be more and more recognized by the laws of nearly all of the States and Territories of this Union.
And the changes thus made in the law, though many of them were at the time considered radical, have so far as we are advised universally tended to the elevation of the marriage relation and of society, and have been fully sustained by the Courts. Our Legislature, imbued with this spirit of progress, enacted the law which now constitutes the chapter of the Code above-referred to; and that it intended radical legislation upon the subject is not only consonant with the spirit of the times, but is clearly shown in the title of the act, " An Act to define the Rights of Married Persons " ; not certain rights, but the rights ; and when such title is viewed in connection with the body of the act, it could probably with propriety read " all the rights."
At least, the title and the act are broad enough to show that it was the intention, by it, to abolish all the disabilities of the wife as a member of the family, which had been imposed upon her by the common law, and to provide instead of said common law rule, a new relation between husband and wife, as members of the family.
What was this new relation provided for in said chapter?
To us it seems that the relation between husband and wife thereby established was (with certain exceptions therein stated) one of absolute equality before the law,
As it not only in express terms gives to her the same rights-to hold property as her husband, but in section three of said act expressly abolishes all civil disabilities imposed on her by the marriage relation, which were not imposed or recognized as existing as to the husband ; and such positive and unequivocal language was used to make this section strong, and beyond question, that it was thought necessary to expressly provide that the right to vote or hold office should not thereby be conferred, lest the unrestricted language of said section should be so strong as to amend the election law by implication, and thereby enable women to vote, the single privilege or right which that Legislature was not ready to confer upon women, but which the subsequent one saw fit to freely and fully bestow.
Then, by section four of said act, she was given exactly the same measure of control over the children of the family as her husband, with the same right to any or all of their earnings, and the same voice in directing all things connected with the family go vernment.
Before this act the father could control the children, irrespective of and even against the express wish and will of the mother, and could send them from or keep them at home at his own caprice.
Since its passage, by its express terms, all of this is changed ; and now the mother as fully controls the children as does the father; and it is clear that under said act it would take the agreeing wills of both father and mother .before their children could be sent permanently away from home to attend school, or for any other purposes; and we think that likewise in all the affairs of the family (not excepted as above stated) what before could be done by the husband, even against the will of the wife, can now only be done by the consent of both.
At common law he had sole control, and was therefore properly treated and held as the head of the family; by our statute the two together, and acting jointly, have like sole control, and are, therefore, jointly the head of the family.
But it is said that if they are thus equal, then neither of them is the head of the family, and therefore not the keeper of a house, as each is only a half of a housekeeper.
This, however, does not follow, as each of them has the absolute right to control the family and household in the absence of the other, and each has all the responsibilities and rights growing out of such control.
One person engaged in keeping a store is said to be a storekeeper, but wc do not speak of one or two persons, who are keeping a store as equal partners, as a half of a storekeeper.
Neither do we think that one or two persons engaged upon equal terms in keeping a house, can be said to be or is only a half of a housekeeper.
Each acting for himself or herself, but in conjunction with his or her companion, is the keeper of the entire household.
The chapter in question has, then, so changed the common law that a wife living with her husband may be a householder, and hence qualified to sei've as a grand juror.
But it is claimed that the said chapter is unconstitutional, if given this application to our jury system, on the ground that the jury guaranteed by the constitution is a jury of men; but as this question was very slightly, if at all, argued in this case, we shall content ourselves by saying that, as to this case, such position is untenable, as the Legislature was at liberty to provide for the trial of crime (not infamous) without presentment of a Grand Jury at all, and a fortiori could provide for its present ment by other than common law Grand Jury. We find no error in the record, and the judgment and sentence must be affirmed, and it is so ordered.
I concur: S. C. Wingard, Associate Justice.