1864.] 323 [Price. 



retained resource for rearing the family in respectability, when the 

 husband's property has been swept away by the resistless tide of a 

 commercial crisis, or, perhaps, been lost by his own indiscretions, 

 not to say, his vices. Experience teaches, as the rule, that the wife's 

 property should be settled to the separate use of herself and children, 

 with such control over it, after her death, vested in the surviving 

 husband, as will hold a worthy father in the respect of his children, 

 and give him a salutary control over them. 



Deeds of settlement, or trusts created by will, in times past, held 

 the wife's property to her separate use; and these are yet the only 

 safe reliance. It is true, recent legislation, in many of the States, 

 declares that her property shall remain hers after marriage as before, 

 and be subject to her own disposal by will, to which he must not be a 

 witness, and it is not liable for his debts, during her life. This is 

 well; yet is she expo.sed to an undue influence, and a coercion that 

 the magistrate cannot probe. She cannot convey her property by 

 deed without the husband joining with her, nor without herself un- 

 dergoing a separate judicial examination. That is, she is not to convey 

 without him, that she may have his protection against the imposi- 

 tion of others; nor without the judicial examination sepai'ate from 

 him, that she may have the magistrate's protection against her 

 husband's quite possible undue influence. The proceeds of the sale 

 she may give to him in the absence of a trust. Each can dispose of 

 his or her property separately by will, but with this exception, that 

 the will of a husband is subject to the widow's right of election to 

 reject the will, and in lieu of its provisions, take one-third of his real 

 estate for life, if he leave issue, and one-third of the personalty for- 

 ever; and if he died without any issue, her right of election will ex- 

 tend to one-half of his estate for such durations of time ; and the 

 wife's power of disposition of her property by will, is subject to his 

 estate for life in the whole of her realty, and to his right to take in 

 lieu of curtesy such share of her real and personal estate as she could 

 have taken of his real and personal estate; that is, one-third or one- 

 half, accordingly as she left issue or not, and for the same duration, 

 of time. But her property held in trust would only go according to 

 the limitations of the trust; or to the dispositions made under the 

 powers expressly reserved or given to her by the trust instrument. 

 A firm trustee is a great assistance to her in the preservation of her 

 property, if her dispositions be required to be made with his consent. 



It has been the good fortune of the writer to be enabled to effect 

 legislation, to some extent, for the further benefit of the wife and 



