Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/162

 The Law of the Latid. one. There is only one safe rule in such emergencies, and that is one prescribed by good faith, that any such conveyance be made with the full knowledge of the intend ed one. Now as the human race is affected with the madness for marrying almost as long as the breath stays in the body, the question suggests itself, is there a time he or she can secretly give away their real estate without it being a fraud on the marital rights of the latest object of the madness? Yes, there_ is such a time. One may be courting or courted and may secretly or openly give away as much of their lands as they desire, but when the time has come that the one who courts proposes, and the one who is courted accepts, there is the marriage en gagement, and from that time begins the contract to purchase for the valuable consid eration — marriage — all real property which accrues by virtue of the marital rights. Hence it has been held where a deed is made alter the marriage engagement and before marriage, privately and unknown to the in tended one, it is impossible that the deed should stand. Nor is it possible for either to say what the marriage portion of the other shall be without the knowledge of the intended one, for the purchase by marriage is a purchase of all the property which accrues by virtue of the marital rights. Where a husband ex ecuted a deed several days before marriage, and requested the transaction to be kept secret, assigning as a reason for such request, that he was about getting married and he thought it was his duty to provide for his own children, that the children of the woman he was going to marry had an estate they were getting something from, and that he would have one hundred acres left which would be a good home for his intended wife if he died, the court set aside the deed as fraudulent as to the wife. Those who seek to play sharp with the game of marriage, in their madness of marry

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ing, keep bad faith and hence apprehend bad faith on the part of those they may trust. Such often try to deed away their real prop erty on the eve of marriage and still keep it within reach of their grasp. For instance, one executed deeds before marriage, but failed to. deliver the same until long after coverture, and of course it had to be held then, that they were not only illegal convey ances at the time of delivery, for want of joint execution on part of wife, but also that even if delivered when executed it would have been fraudulent as to the widow, being executed secretly for the purpose of cutting off her dower. Many a player trying to beat the game of matrimony is hoisted on his own petard, for while completed conveyances will be void as to the intended wife, however, as between grantor and grantee, they are good. The tables were nicely turned in this way in a case after marriage, for the many schemes to beat the game continue after marriage as well as prior thereto. Mankind seldom try to make the best of a bargain, but being convinced that they have the bad end of it, will resort to any course that may suggest itself as a.way to get square. Accordingly after marriage and the subsi dence of the madness, the husband deter mined to destroy the marital rights pur chased by his wife by marriage. He executed a mortgage to a friend, who, in an unguarded moment, declared that the mortgagor was not indebted to him in anyway, that there was no consideration for the mortgage, that the mortgagor had given the mortgage for the sole purpose of preventing his wife from getting any part of the mortgaged premises. Upon proof of such statements the mortgage was held void as to the wife, the person in tended to be defrauded, but good as between the husband and his friend; that the husband could not profit by his own wrong and hence was legally bound as far as he was concerned to pay the mortgage for which he had received no value.