THE MARRIED WOMAN’S PROPERTY ACT.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1253, 22 January 1883, Page 2

THE MARRIED WOMAN’S PROPERTY ACT.

The Married Woman’i Property Act, whlbh came into force tn England on .Jantiary let. Is one which effects a revolution in the legal relations of man and wife, The third eubsection of the firet eeotion le one of the moat remarkable proviaiona that have ever figured in the statute-book. It enaote that " every contract entered into by a married woman shall be deemed to be a contract entered iuto by her with respect to and to bind her separate property, Unleae the contrary be shown. The tradesman who henceforth sup filies a wife with dresaes or jewellery muet ook to the wif alone, unless he can distinctly show that the bargain was made with the knowledge and authority of her hueband. The thirteenth and fourteenth eeotjone are I also somewhat startling to penone with oldfashioned ideas. If a woman is in debt when she marries, she can be made to pay ont of I any money which has been settled upon her, ! or which is her own in virtue of the Act. Her j husband, on the other hand, is only liable for her ante-nuptial debts to the extent iof sueli property as she may hard i brought him With this act in force It would I be impossible for Clandine to annoy either i Lady Draco or her husband. Lady Draco g has no separate estate against which to pre- " I fer a claim, and her hnsband io free from ner ' ante-nuptial debts, because she has brought 1 him nothing with which io pay them j find I he is free also from her past-nuptial debtSi j because the contracts are her and only bind j herself. This is husband and wife limited I and limited very much indeed. There is al- ! so a section which will greatly disappoint i adventures who made it their business to , marry a singer, an actress or an artist, and , then, like Thackeray’s Captain Hookey Walker, to live on her earnings. Any money k which a woman may make by an employment trade or occupation, or by the exercise of any literarty, artistic, or scientific skill— these . are the words of the act —belongs exclusively ’ to herself. It will be impossible next year , for the husband to hung abotit the treasury of a theatre and draw hie wife’s salary;