THE HUSBAND PAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 61, 13 March 1929, Page 6

THE HUSBAND PAYS.

(By A BARRISTER.)

It is commonly said that a man is liable for his wife's torts, and often for her debts, while the converse does not obtain. It is also commonly said that in these matters the woman has an unfair advantage over the man. But the law, as demonstrated in a recent case, is not such an ass as many people seem to imagine. It is quite true that a husband does often find himself compelled to pay debts incurred by hie wife. But his liability arises, not from the fact that she is his wife, but because she is usually his agent, actually or by implication empowered by him to run his house and dress herself on his behalf. You cannot hold a man—or your wife—out as your agent to buy food or frocks, and then refuse to pay for what your agent buys. That is all, and it is fair enough.

The presumption that the wife has the husband's authority to pledge his credit is rebuttable. The husband is not liable if he proves that, in fact, he had forbidden his wife to run up bills, or that he had given her a sufficient allowance on the understanding tjiat ehe made it do, or that she already had enough of the things she was buying, for her implied authority is only to buy necessaries, her requirements being judged, not according to absolute necessity, but with regard to her station in life. For example, T earned £370 a year; Mrs. T ran up a bill of £33 for hats, for which T was sued. It was proved that she had had £1.50 worth of hats in the same period. (This was an actual case.) T was not liable. There is only one case in which a husband cannot withdraw from his wife the presumed authority to pledge his credit, and that is where they are living apart through his fault and not hers. Then she may pledge his credit to obtain necessaries suitable to her station, and he will have to pay for them. Of course, where they have separated by mutual consent or through the wife's fault, that is a different matter.

In the case of the woman who cannot be compelled to pay her husband's debt, there is no presumption that she has authorised him, actually or by implication, to contract the debt, simply because it is not customary for the husband to be his wife's agent to run the house and buy food and clothes. A husband's liability for his wife's torts rests on a different 'principle. The vast majority of married women have no income or property apart from their husbands', and however wantonly Mrs. Brown slandered Mrs. Smith over Mrs. Robinson's teacups, it would be of no use to sue her, for she would have nothing to pay with. So that if Mr. Brown were not liable there would he no redress and no means of stopping the lady's tonjjue, short of criminal prosecution, which only applies in the most serious cases. If it were customary for a wife to receive wages for her housekeeping, or if a proportion of her husband's income were definitely hers, where she had none of her own, it might be safe to relieve the husband from liability. Meanwhile, the law is bound to reflect and provide for society as it is, not as we think it ought to be.