Court Opinion

ID: 9808124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:28:32.128865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:09:05.065158
License: Public Domain

ClaRK, C. J.,
dissenting: We held in Warren v. Dail, 170 N. C., 406, that a married woman can make any contract that she could make if unmarried, and make her property, real and personal, liable, without privy examination and without charging the same upon any specific property. If this were not so, then it would have been necessary to have held the “Martin” Act, Laws 1911, ch. 109, null and void, though in full conformity with the Constitution of 1868, which emancipated married women as to property rights, making them sui juris and providing that- as to their property, whether owned by them at the time of marriage, or acquired thereafter in any manner, they should have as full control “as if they were unmarried,” save only that the husband’s assent is required as to conveyances. Walker v. Long, 109 N. C., 510.
This Court has always held that the husband’s witnessing a conveyance made by his wife is -a sufficient “assent,” Jennings v. Hinton, 126 N. C., 48; or writing a letter, Brinlcley v. Ballance, ib., 393; or signing the deed without express assent, Jones v. Craigmiles, 114 N. C., 613, and many other cases. In the present case the husband fully concurred in the paper by signing it, and it having been recorded, the defendant is entitled to specific performance and the plaintiffs are not entitled to have such contract canceled as a cloud upon title.
The requirement of “privy examination” cannot be added to the constitutional provision which authorizes a married woman to convey subject (as said in the concurring opinion in Warren v. Dail, 170 N. C., at pp. 413-415) to only one restriction, “the written assent” of the husband, for no other clog or requirement can be added.
The privy examination was imposed at a time when married- women had no such right, and was probably inadvertently brought forward in the codifications of the laws. Though copied in the “Martin” Act, it should be held subordinate to the change in the Constitution in regard to the freedom of married women to convey their own property *530with merely “tbe written consent” of tbe bnsband. Hence tbe privy examination can be required only wben tbe wife joins in tbe conveyance by tbe busband of bis own property, by way of release of ber contingent right of dower, which is given and can be taken away by tbe Legislature. Even in that case, it is useless, as tbe busband in fact selects tbe justice of tbe peace. Its retention, after its abolition in England, and all our sister States (except four) is nothing more than a curious instance of mental inertia except to those who deem it little short of a standing insult to all husbands and wives, based upon tbe legal 'assumption thus made that husbands, in this State, will influence their wives by improper means, or cheat or bully them, and that wives by such means can be made .to assent to conveyances unless protected by a magistrate selected by tbe busband.
■The aggregate expense and annoyance of privy examinations, useless as they are,' is no small consideration.
Tbe Constitution requires privy examination of tbe wife only wben she joins in tbe conveyance of tbe husband’s “allotted” homestead, which is an implied abolition of it in all other cases: Inclusio unius, exclusio alterius.
■ Tbe deed of a married venían, without privy examination, is color of title, Perry v. Perry, 99 N. C., 270. As, in tbis case, tbe busband joined in tbe contract to convey, it is a valid contract, and tbe court below, it seems to me, properly held that tbe plaintiffs bad not stated a cause of action for cancellation.