9 Kan. 80 | Kan. | 1872
The opinion of the court was delivered by
These three cases present the same question and may be considered together. The defendants in error brought their several actions upon promissory notes signed by plaintiff in error, and by E. B. Wicks and F. S. Boice, Plaintiff in error answered, alleging her coverture, that said notes Avere given in satisfaction of certain accounts due by the firm of Wicks & Boice, that no consideration therefor passed to her, that they Avere not given for her OAvn benefit or for the benefit of her separate estate,.nor Avith reference thereto, and that she “did not nor has she charged her sole or separate propei’ty with the payment of said notes, or either of them, but at the time of their execution refused to in any manner so charge her sole and separate property or any part thereof.” Demurrers to these answers were sustained, and judgments rendered.
The only thing to distinguish these cases from the case of Deering v. Boyle, 8 Kas., 525, is contained in the last clause of the answers just quoted. It Avas in that case held that “when a married woman executes a promissory note in payment and satisfaction of her husband’s debt an action may be maintained against her on said note, and her separate property applied in payment of the same.” Counsel for plaintiff in error claim, "arguing from that decision, that her separate estate is so charged because it is presumed from the giving of the note that she intended to charge such estate; or, in other words, that the note is simply evidence of her intention. They further claim that such a note is only prima facie evidence, and may be overthroAvn by other testimony; that therefore in every such case a question of fact exists as to her intention; that here she alleges that it Avas not her intention
Counsel in strong language picture the hardship which may ensue where an unsuspecting wife, lured by the entreaties of her husband, or frightened at the arrest and possible disgrace which threaten him, signs as surety notes for his indebtedness, and shortly thereafter finds all her separate property swept away from herself and children. If this be the-result, the statutes of these later times, which are entitled “statutes to protect the rights of married women,” counsel claim, were more appropriately denominated “statutes to lure married women into the m'eshes of their'husbands’ creditors.” The possibility of results like this, in isolated cases, could not of course determine the rule. Considerations of that kind may appropriately be pressed in the legislature, but can have no weight with us who are to determine what is, not what should be the law. It may not be inappropriate to say, however, that with every enlargement of the rights of married women comes a corresponding increase in their responsibilities. When they take the right to control their sepai’ate estates, they assume the risks of such control. When the law gives them the privileges of separate individual citizens, they take with it all the responsibilities and dangers of such