Page:The Legal Subjection of Men.djvu/30

 will. Conveyancers aver that the steady tendency is for a woman to leave property acquired from some man always to a woman. A silent revolution in succession is being accomplished. But the man is left under his old burdens of supporting his wife.

A wife is privileged to recover judgment against, and bankrupt her husband for any money she may have lent him, and this privilege is no dead letter.

A husband does not lend, but gives money to his wife. If he were to attempt by legal documents to turn it into a loan, he would discover once again that what is sauce for the goose, is by no means sauce for the gander. There is no case on record of a husband daring to sue his wife for a loan.

Not merely as against the husband, but against her creditors, the married woman is in a position of enviable privilege. A married woman, even when separated from her husband, and released from all duties towards him or her children, retains her privilege of having her property exempt from seizure for debt.

Technicalities would be tedious, but the following is the practical working of the law. In legal phraseology, if a married woman enters into a contract, and if (an important if) there is no restraint against anticipation in her settlement, then her property, or some of it, may be attached. As to the restraint against anticipating income, this clause, introduced by Lord Chancellor Thurlow to protect an interesting relative of his against her husband, is practically to be found in every settlement, being now useful against the creditor, although no longer needed against the husband.