WHO OWNS WIFE'S CLOTHES?

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 190, 13 August 1928, Page 5

WHO OWNS WIFE'S CLOTHES?

PROBLEM FOR MAGISTRATE. The question arose in the Magistrate's Court at Wanganui of who owns the wife's clothes, the husband or the wife? The magistrate said that unless the wife could show that she bought them from her own earnings, he considered, without looking it tip, that her clothing belonged to the husband. However, he did not want too much publicity about it. Counsel contended that it was something in the nature of a gift to the wife bought out of money given to her by the husband and therefore must be presumed to be her property.

The magistrate said he recollected a case in Wellington where the wife cleared out and was proceeded against bv the husband for the clothes she wore.

His Worship then set another problem for counsel: If the overcoat bought out of the husband's wages and worn in the daytime to keep the husband warm belonged to the husband, to whom did the blankets, also bought out of wages to keep both of them warm at night belong? It may well be asked how does the promise of the husband at the marriage ceremony, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," affect the question of ownership of both the wife's clothes and the blankets.