Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/136

 for his wife and children exists only in actions for divorce, absolute or limited, as an incident thereto, and to prevent a failure of justice. On the other hand, some tribunals, with commendable adherence to principle, putting aside precedents whose spirit is narrow and technical, asserted boldly the inherent power of a court of equity to coerce the faithful discharge of this, the highest duty of man in social life, the law affording the wife no adequate redress. 1 Amer. & Eng. Enc. Law, 469, 470, and cases cited in notes. It would be almost a brutal jest to speak of the law's justice to a wife because she might carry her husband's credit into every place where necessities were to be had. He who trusts under such circumstances knows in advance that he must sue to collect. How many are willing to extend credit that they may have the pleasure of subsequent litigation? How many are willing to have their right to compensation for their merchandise depend upon uncertain questions whether the husband has supplied the wife with necessaries or with money to buy them, and upon the still more uncertain and very complicated question as to what in each particular case constitute those necessaries for which the law will hold the husband responsible? To carry with her his credit is therefore no adequate redress for the wrong he has done her. Moreover, the law frowns down unnecessary litigation. Equity abhors a multiplicity of actions. To prevent such multiplicity, equity, supplanting the law, lays hold of a controversy, and settles every phase of it. What greater encouragement to frequent and petty and bitter litigation than to bestow upon the neglected wife her husband's credit instead of a portion of his property or money? It was because of this divergence in the authorities we believe that this act was passed. Its purpose was to settle the question, whether in this state, with its progressive jurisprudence, the wife should have an adequate remedy for her wrongs in this respect. We do not think its design was to innovate upon settled rules of procedure. Section 3 expressly provides that "the practice in such cases shall conform as nearly as may be to the practice in divorce cases, and the court shall have power to enforce its orders as in other equity cases. The implication from this phrase "other equity cases,"