119 Mass. 596 | Mass. | 1876
The statutes which from time to time have been enacted in this Commonwealth, for the purpose of enlarging the rights and privileges of married women, have not in terms made any specific regulations in regard to the ownership of their wearing apparel. Except in cases where the wife herself purchases it with her own separate money or earnings, that matter remains exactly as it stood at common law. At common law, the husband is bound to maintain the wife, and to provide her with suitable clothing appropriate to their degree and his own circumstances and social position. If the articles of clothing and personal ornament appropriate for her are purchased with his money or upon his credit, the fact that they are selected and purchased by her, and are intended for her personal and exclusive use, does not render them any the less his property. In
The property sued for in this action consists mainly of the plaintiff’s personal clothing; and if it had been purchased by her with her own money, that is to say, with money which was-literally her own, and belonged to herself separately and exclusively, the action in her name might well be maintained. But we find nothing in the facts reported to support that view of the case. On the contrary, we find that the relation in which sha and her husband stood to each other was exactly the ordinary relation of husband and wife as it stood at common law, unaffected by any of the recent legislation upon that subject. It does not appear that she had any separate property of her own, or that she was following any trade or business of her own, requiring a certificate to be filed in pursuance of the St. of 1862, c. 198. She and her husband worked in the same mill, and under the St. of 1874, c. 184, § 1, the work and labor of a married woman shall be presumed to be on her separate account. Under that statute, therefore, she could have kept her earnings separate, if she saw fit to do so. But this is a privilege which she might waive, and her allowing them to be mingled with those of her husband would be primá facie evidence that she had done so. Kelly v. Drew, 12 Allen, 107. The money with which she purchased the clothing described in the declaration appears from the bill of exceptions to have been given to her by her husband from
In this view of the case, the instructions requested by the defendant should have been given, and those actually given were incorrect and inappropriate. Exceptions sustained.