55 Vt. 506 | Vt. | 1883
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This is a demurrer to the declaration. It alleges in substance that the defendant, then a married woman, and the
Was there such moral obligation that the promise was legally binding upon the defendant ? Our attention has been called to Haywood v. Baker, 52 Vt. 430. We have no occasion to question the soundness of the opinion of Judge Barrett in that case, although the reasoning is wholly technical. The rights and duties of married women have within the last few years not only been much modified, but in some jurisdictions been wholly changed. ' Ch. J. Shaw, speaking of the legal condition of a femme covert, under the common law, said “ a man and his wife are onej and that one is the husband.” But it is now known and recognized that a man and his wife are two, and often the important personage of the two is the wife. And it is not a fortunate, nor, as we think, a strictly correct, use of language to say that contracts of married women are void. ■ It has always been recognized in this State and elsewhere, that money contracts of a femme covert are binding on the conscience; and a court of equity will compel her to respond and pay what in conscience she ought to have paid. She is, it is true, under the disability of coverture, and at law there are insurmountable difficulties in reaching her or her separate property by the process of court. But her contracts as to using and improving her separate estate are in no sense void, but binding .contracts upon the person and property of a married woman. She could not, to be sure, be imprisoned. The law forbids that; but her conscience could be charged and her separate estate. And as the rights of married women become enlarged, their reciprocal and correlative duties do, and should, keep pace with them, so that the administration of the law shall be consistent with itself. This woman owning a farm as her separate estate hired this money to improve and render beneficial to her her estate. She gave her note for the money and used it improving