Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/418

402 402 H U S H U S the wealthier classes. The legislature by the Married Women s Property Acts of 1870 and 1874 has introduced changes, the benefit of which will probably be most keenly felt among the poor. The chief provisions are shortly these ; (1) the earnings of a married woman in an occu pation carried on by her apart from her husband are to be held as property settled to her separate use, independent of her husband, and her investments of such earnings are similarly protected ; (2) when a woman, married after the passing of the Act, becomes entitled during marriage to personal property as next of kin, or to any sum not exceed ing 200 under a deed or will, such property shall belong to her for her separate use ; where real property descends to her as heiress of an intestate, the rents and profits thereof shall belong to her for her separate use ; (3) in respect of property thus declared to be her &quot; separate estate,&quot; she may sue in her own name ; on the other hand, her husband is not liable for debts contracted by her before marriage, except to the extent to which he has received property in her right. Married women having separate estates are made liable for the maintenance of their husbands who may become charge able to any union or parish, and of their children. A married woman cannot make any contract binding on herself except as to separate estate. She can only bind her husband as his agent, but from the relation of the parties the fact of agency is easily implied. The strong est case is that of a wife whose husband unjustifiably refuses to maintain her ; in that case she is his agent, in the sense that he is bound by her contracts for necessaries supplied to her. By the Act of 1870 she can insure her own or her husband s life for her separate use. Law of Scotland. The law of Scotland on this head differs less from English law than the use of a very different terminology would lead us to suppose. The phrase communio bonorum has been employed to express the interest which the spouses have in the movable property of both, but its use has been severely censured by a high authority as essentially inaccurate and misleading. Mr Patrick Fraser, in his elaborate and valuable treatise on Husband and Wife, contends that there is no real community of goods, and no partnership or societas between the spouses. The wife s mov able property, with certain exceptions, and subject to special agree ments, becomes as absolutely the property of the husband as it does in English law. The notion of a communio is, however, favoured by the peculiar rights of the wife and children on the dissolution of the marriage. Previous to the Act 18 & 19 Viet. c. 23 the law stood as follows. The fund formed by the movable property of both spouses may be dealt with by the husband as he pleases dur ing life ; it is increased by his acquisitions and diminished by his debts. The respective shares contributed by husband and wife return on the dissolution of the marriage to them or their representa tives if the marriage be dissolved within a year and a day, and with out a living child. Otherwise the division is into two or three shares, according as children are existing or not at the dissolution of the marriage. On the death of the husband, his children take one- third (lf,gitim the widow takes one-third (jus rclictce), and the remaining one-third (the dead s part] goes according to his will or to his next of kin. If there be no children, the jus relictcc and the dead s part are each one-half. If the wife die before the husband, her repres lit itives, whether children or not, are creditors for the value of her share. The statute above-mentioned, however, enacts that &quot; where a wile shall predecease her husband, the next of kin, executors, or other representatives of such wife, whether testate or intestate, shall have no right to any share of the goods in com munion; nor shall any legacy or bequest, or testamentary disposition thereof by such wife, affect or attach to the said goods or any portion thereof.&quot; It also abolishes the rule by which the shares revert if the marringe does not subsist for a year and a day. Two later Acts apply to Scotland the principlesof the English Married Women s Pro perty Acts. These are the Act 40 & 41 Viet. c. 29. which protects the earnings, &c. , of wives, and limits the husband s liability for antenup tial debts of the wife, and the Act 43 & 44 Viet. c. 26, which enables a woman to contract for a policy of assurance for her separate use. A wife s heritable property does not pass to the husband on marringe, but he acquires a right to the administration and profits. His courtesy, as in English law, is also recognized. On the other hand, a widow has a tercc or liferent of a third part of the husband s heritable estate, unless she has accepted a conventional provision. American Law. In the American States, the revolt against the common law theory of husband and wife has been carried further than in England, and legislation tends in the direction of absolute equality between the sexes. &quot;What are familiarly known as the Married Women s Acts,&quot; says a recent writer, &quot;the product of American legislation during the last quarter of a century, aim to secure to the wife the independent control of her own property, and the right to contract, sue, and be sued without her husband, under reasonable conditions &quot; (Schouler s Law of Domestic Relations). Each State has, however, taken its own way and selected its own time for introducing modifications of the existing law, so that the legislation on this subject is now exceedingly complicated and diffi cult. Schouler (op. cit., p. 212) gives an account of the general result in the different States, from which the following is condensed : In Maine, a liberal right in married women of holding property independently of husband s control, which the wife may, however, relax by written instrument authorizing her husband to manage it ; in New Hampshire, the right to hold from strangers, and from her husband (not in fraud of creditors), and to keep earnings when deserted ; in Vermont, similar result effected by the Chancery Courts without special legislation ; in Massachusetts, a liberal right to acquire separate property ; in Khode Island, property exempt from husband s debts, but his control recognized ; in Connecticut, some what limited recognition of separate estate ; in New York, the most liberal provisions as to property held before or acquired after marriage a complete emancipation from marital dominion ; a similar policy in the laws of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, effected in the last case by the courts rather than by statute ; in Ohio, geneial exemption of wife s estate from her husband s debts ; in Indiana, a peculiar policy, on the community system, wife s powers of transfer limited ; Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas follow closely the legislation of Massachusetts ; in Iowa, limited recognition of wife s estate; in California, community of goods recognized after the Spanish system, formerly prevalent there, so in Nevada ; in Oregon, wife s property exempt from husband s debts ; in Nebraska, liberal rights recognized in married women ; in Missouri, wife s property in land more particularly exempt from husband s debts ; in Kentucky, peculiar restraint on husband s marital rights ; in Tennessee, wife s property protected, btit her right to control not recognized ; in Arkansas a liberal policy prevails. The Southern States have been later in taking up this movement, but it is considered likely that they will follow the rest. The peculiar system of Homestead Laws in the Southern and Western States (described in article HOMESTEAD) constitutes an inalienable provision for the wife and family of the householder. (E. R. ) HUSCH, HUSHI, or Husi, chief town of tlie Roumanian province of Falciu, Moldavia, is situated on the right bank of the Pruth, about 40 miles south-east of Jassy. It is the seat of the district courts of justice, and of a bishop of the Greek Church. It possesses a cathedral and a normal school, and carries on an active trade in tobacco. The population in 1870 was estimated at 18,000. At Husch was signed in 1711 the treaty of the Pruth, between Russia and Turkey, which freed the army of Peter the Great from a position of great danger. HUSHlARPUR, a British district in the lieutenant- governorship of the Punjab, India, lying between 30 58 and 32 5 N. lat. and .between 75 31 and 76 41 15&quot; E. long. It forms the central district of the Jalandhar division, and is bounded N.E. by the district of Kangra and the native state of Nalagarh, N. and N.W. by the river Bias, S.W. by Jalandhar, and S. by the river Satlaj (Sutlej) and Ambala (Umballa) district. The district of Hushidrpur falls into two nearly equal portions of hill and plain country. Its eastern face con sists of the westward slope of the Kangra Mountains; parallel with that ridge, a line of lower heights traverses the district from south to north, while between the two chains stretches a valley of uneven width, known as the Jaswan Dun. Its upper portion is crossed by the Soan torrent, while the Sutlej sweeps into its lower end by a break in the hills, and flows in a southerly direction till it turns the flank of the central range, and debouches west wards upon the plains. This western plain consists of alluvial formation, with a general westerly slope owing to the deposit of silt from the mountain torrents in the sub montane tract. The Bias has a fringe of lowland, open to moderate but not excessive inundations, and considered very fertile. A considerable area is covered by Government woodlands, under the care of the forest department.