THE MARRIED WOMEN’S PROPERTY ACT.

Evening Star, Issue 6711, 1 October 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MARRIED WOMEN’S PROPERTY ACT.

Considerable difficulty has tften been experienced by traders as to the correct i interpretation of the olausrs of the Married Women's Properly Aot, The ' Economist,' iu a recent ieeue, osllb special attention to a marked difference cf judicial opinion as to the operation < f the Act in connection with a caß3 recently decided by the Court of Appeal. By a will executed in 1880, the property of the testator was bequeathed to A, B, and B'a wife, " to and f:r tneir own use and benefit absolutely." Up to the passing of the Marr'ed Women's Property Act, husband and wife wero, in the eyeofthe law, one person, and, if distributed under the old law, one half cf the property would have gone to*A, and the other half to B and his wife. Under the exiting hw, however, the wife can hold property in her own right, and it was oontbnded, therefore, that the estate of the testator should be divided into three portions, A taking one, B the other, and B's wife the third. This latter view web adopted by Mr Justice Cfaitty, before whom the case was first brought, and who is reported to have said that " the alteration? effected by the Married Women's Property Act on the old law of husband and wife were bo extensive and so marked that it would bo wrong any lorger, even in the construction cf a will, to apply the old principle of the husband and wife being a compound pereoo. 1 ' But the opposit* view baa sow bsen taking by the Court of Appeal, which, without deciding what would be the effect of the Married Women's Property Act upon a' will made after the f asalng of that Ac;, has held that a will made before tho Aot cema into operation must be construed eccDi'&ing to the law then in force. _ And this dois seem the mare reasonable decision, bcoiuse it is tj assome that a will would ha draw-i up iu accordanca with tho rules in force wiieu it was made, and the wishes of ths t-.sisfcor, therefore, be best carried out *v pdheiirg to these rules.