HUSBANDS OF FOUR KINDS

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1323, 30 June 1883, Page 4

HUSBANDS OF FOUR KINDS

SI point decided by the Queen's •non Division in the very recent cue : Bell against Stocker, will, notithstmding the Married Women’s roperty Act passed in the recent Muon of Parliament, retain its importance for many years to come, ince the fourteenth section contains n express provision that nothing lontained in that Act shall operate to nerease or diminish the liability of my husband married before the commencement of the Act. The point was this i Can a widower be held liable tor a debt incurred by his deceased wife previous to their marriage, the marriage having taken place sub; sequent ly to the 30th of July, 1874, the date of the Married Women’s Property Act (1870) Amendment Act, 1874. This question of the husband's liability for his wife’s ante-nuptial debts is one in which the year of the marriage makes all the difference. Previously to 1870 a nan was liable for his wife's ante-nuptial debts, whether he had or had not received property with her, but only when sued jointly .’with her. Then came the Married Women’s Property Act, 1870, which entirely took away the right of suing husbands married after that Act for such debts, leaving the wife's separate estate to bear the liability. Then the Amendment Act of 1874 made a fresh rule of liability, enacting that husbands married after that Act, should only be liable for such debts when sued jointly with their wives, and then only to the amount of the property which they actually received with the latter, or ought to have received but for their own neglect or fraud. Lastly, the new Act of 1882 leaves women married after that Act and their separate estates primarily liable for their antenuptial debts, and proves that husbands are to be liable for such debts to the extent of property belonging to their wives which they have acquired or become entitled to from or through the latter; and it further provides that husband and wife may be sued jointly, if it is sought to establish a claim against both of them. Thus there are four different classes of husbands — those married before 1870, those married between 1870 and 1874, those married between 1874 and 1882, and tnose married since 1882—and the rights of each class are different. The question in Bell against Stocker affected the rights of the third class, and it was held that, inasmuch as husbands in that class elass can only be made liable for their wives' ante-nuptial debts in an action in which they are sued jointly with the latter, which condition can be no longer fulfilled after the wives' deaths, their liability comes to an end at the latter event.—“ London Law Times. 1 '