59 P. 873 | Or. | 1900
after stating the facts, delivered the opinion of the court.
The sole question presented is whether the said covenant for the payment of the debt constitutes such an undertaking on the part of the wife that a personal decree may be entered against her, enforceable against her separate property. The question is one susceptible of solution under the statutory provisions touching the rights and authority of a married woman to contract, and her ensuing liabilities. Our statute makes the following provisions as.bearing upon the controversy, viz.: Sess. Laws, 1893, p. 170 ; Hill’s Ann. Laws, § 2992 : “The property and pecuniary rights of every married woman at the time of her marriage, or afterwards acquired, shall not be subject to the debts or contracts of her husband, and she may manage, sell, convey, or devise the same by will to the same extent and in the same manner that her husband can property belonging to him.” Hill’s Ann. Laws, § 2997: “Contracts may be made by a wife, and liabilities incurred, and the same enforced by or against her to the same extent and in the same manner as if she were unmarried.” Hill’s Ann. Laws, § 2998 : “All laws which impose or recognize civil disabilities upon a wife which are not imposed or recognized as existing as to the husband are hereby repealed; provided, that this act shall not confer the right to vote or hold office upon the wife, except as is otherwise provided by law ; and for any unjust usurpation of her property or natural rights she shall have the same right to appeal in her own name alone to the courts of law or equity for redress that the husband has.” The section first quoted was originally adopted in 1878, but was amended in 1893 by eliminating therefrom the words “by gift, devise, or inheritance,” following the word “acquired.” The second section was adopted in
By Section 2992, Hill’s Ann. Laws, the wife is empowered and authorized to manage, sell, convey, and devise by will any property that she may have acquired from any source, in like manner and to the same extent that her husband can property belonging to him ; and
As we have intimated, however, section 2997, by specific enactment, subjects the wife to the same remedies that it does the husband, and this is in accord with reason and justice. “Increased rights bring increased responsibilities.” Still, as though section 2997 was not sufficient to accomplish the full purpose of the legislature, and put in practical vogue the recent tendency and policy of the times, and thoroughly emancipate and disenthrall the wife from all civil disabilities that the marriage relation entailed upon her, and which did not exist as it respects the husband, except the right to vote and hold office, section 2998 was adopted at the succeeding session of the legisla