Court Opinion

ID: 9811247
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:14:13.774094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:47.357879
License: Public Domain

Clare:, C. J.,
concurring: There is nothing in the Constitution of North Carolina which disabled the Legislature from providing that a married woman can “contract as if single.” If she can contract, then she is liable for breach of her contract. The contract in this case was for land, and if for any reason,- as the refusal of a husband to give his written consent or for lack of title, or for any other cause, the court can not decree specific performance, then an action for damages lies as in all such cases. Indeed, where there is a breach of contract to convey lands the party aggrieved is never compelled to bring specific performance, which is a proceeding in equity, but he has his option to bring an action for damages for the breach, as the plaintiff has done in this case.
Chapter 109, Laws 1911, is as broad as it is possible to make it (except as to contracts between man and wife) in providing that “Every married woman shall be authorized to contract and deal so as to affect her real and personal property in the same manner and with the same effect as if she were unmarried.” The act then proceeds to say that, as to “conveyances of her real estate,” there must be the written assent of her husband as required by the Constitution. This statute of 1911 is the expression of the constitutional body authorized to make the laws, and it is immaterial what was the law formerly in that respect. We know that it has been held differently by the Court, or the statute would not have been necessary.
It is true that in this case liability is enforcible against the married woman. But responsibility is the correlative of freedom and of liberty. Only those are irresponsible who are incompetent for lack of maturity— *414as minors or “in chains,” as convicts, idiots, and lunatics. Our Constitution and legislatures, responding to the growing enlightenment and the advancing sense of justice of the age, are taking women out of that class. Whenever the Legislature conceded the right to contract there went with it the liability upon the contracting party to become liable for breach of contract.
Down to the Constitution of 1868 the badges of inferiority imposed upon married women by the barbarism of the Middle Ages, which made them practically the chattels of their husbands, existed in the laws of North Carolina. Till then married women were non sui juris in this State. The Constitution made them fully and in every respect sui juris, save only in the restraint upon alienation imposed by requiring them to obtain the written consent of their husbands to conveyances of their realty. This was the sole restriction upon the control of her property by a married woman recognized by the Constitution, and that has- been long abolished in England and in nearly all the States of this Union. The requirement in our Constitution of a privy examination is limited to conveyances by the husband of his allotted homestead.
Down to 1868 in this State, on marriage all of the wife’s property went into the possession or ownership of the husband. We went even beyond the common law in depriving a wife of her inchoate right of dower until the act of 1867, which “restored the common-law right of dower.” Notwithstanding the great change so clearly made in the Constitution as to the property rights of married women, the judges then on the bench, educated under the former system, were not able to fully recognize it, and made many decisions more in accordance with former ideas than with the spirit and letter of the Constitution.
If the plain letter of the Martin act did not fully express .its intention to confer untrammeled right of contract upon married women, it should be construed in the light of the numerous statutes, all in the same direction, changing the decisions of the courts which did not accord with the Constitution. Among them may be named Rev., 2095, which provides that a married woman can draw out her money in bank by her own check and that her husband’s check will not be valid for that purpose, as formerly; that she can be a free trader, Rev., 2112-2118; that she can hold building and loan stock, Rev., 3885; that when a building is built or repaired on her land with her consent or procurement she shall be deemed to have contracted for the same, Rev., 2016; that she may sue without joining her husband when the action concerns her separate property, Rev., 408; that an execution can issue against her property; that the statute of limitations runs against her as against any other person sui juris; that the savings from her separate estate are her separate property, Rev., 2100; that if the husband abandons her she *415can sell and convey ber real property as if unmarried, Bev., 2117; that her earnings shall be her own and not subject to control of her husband, and that compensation for any tort to her person or her property and damages for physical and mental anguish suffered by her, she alone can recover, and without joining her husband, Laws 1913, ch. 13; that if .she owns land for life or a longer period she shall be a freeholder, Laws 1915, ch. 22; and many other statutes changing decisions of the courts that had followed the ancient ideas as to the incapacity and incompetence of married women. In short, the act of 1911, known as the “Martin act,” simply sums up a long line of statutes and culminates by recognizing in married women the right to make any and all contracts as fully as if they had remained single, or that their husbands could make, save only contracts between husband and wife under Bev., 2107, as to which the presumption in law remains that the 'husband will take advantage of the wife and that the wife is incompetent to prevent it, and that the preventive is the wisdom of some adjacent magistrate who shall supervise such contracts. With that exception there .is no restraint upon the contracting powers of married women.
As to wills, married women are equally untrammeled. As to conveyances there is the constitutional restraint upon alienation, that the wife must have the written consent of the husband to conveyances of her realty. There is no corresponding restraint upon the husband, who can make a valid conveyance without his wife’s consent, subject only to the contingency of dower if she outlives him. There is a further restriction in the privy examination of the wife, which is still required in North Carolina, though it exists only in four other States of the American Union, and has long since been abolished in England. Whether this requirement is a greater reflection on the honesty of the husband or on the competency of the wife is an open question.
Taking, therefore, the language of the Constitution and the entire drift of legislation since, it is very' certain that the intent of the Martin act to confer upon married women entire freedom of contract, in every respect, except with her husband, whether it affects their real or personal property, is beyond question.