UNJUST LEGACIES

Evening Star, Issue 20780, 30 April 1931, Page 5

UNJUST LEGACIES

Bill TO PROTECT FAMILIES HARDSHIP GASES QUOTED Miss Eleanor Rathbone, a stately lady with white hair, who represents eight universities in Parliament, and who claims to he “an export in domestic unhappiness,” found a majority of P2l in the House of Commons for a Bill which lays down that a husband shall not be permitted to will away the whole of his estate, and leave his wife and children in poverty. Speaking broadly, the principle of the Bill is that the surviving spouse shall inherit half of the estate if there are no children of the marriage, and a third if there is a “ family,” and the children have also to ho provided for. Miss Rathbone, whose authority on domestic discord was won in wartime Liverpool while investigating the reason for which soldiers stopped their wives’ allowances, had prepared her recommendation of the Bill with thoroughness. She is one of the best speakers in Parliament. The freedom of the testator, she asserted, is a comparatively new idea in English common law, and this liberty had resulted in more injustice than is usually supposed. WIFE LEFT PENNILESS. One of Miss Rathhone’s “ hard cases ” was of a wife whose husband died leaving £IO,OOO, which he and she had earned together in business, and yet the law permitted him, as he did, to will away the whole estate to another woman, so that his wife was loft penniless. "By the old English common law,” she said, “ there were considerable restrictions on the freedom of testators imposed in the interests of survivors, and those restrictions were gradually removed at a time when utter subjection of wife and children to the will of husband and father was a fashionable doctrine. “ Since then, in England and Wales, a man has enjoyed this glorious ability to marry a woman, promise to endow her with all his wordly goods, give her, perhaps, a number of children, and then, possibly when the children are still young and unable to support themselves, possibly when the wife is too old to return to her place in the labour market or in her profession, he may leave her and the children totally destitute, willing everything lie possesses perhaps to a mistress, perhaps to a favoured relative, or, perhaps to charity.” REMARRIAGE OP WIDOW. Miss Rathbone spoke of the difficulties arising from disputes between Darbys and .loans, and the hardships inflicted on wives who found themselves supplanted in wills by “ the secret woman.” “ The Bill,” she said, “ would avoid such hardships.” Captain Bourne moved the rejection of the Bill. Few men, he observed, maliciously refuse to take thought for wife and children, and leave all their money to benefit stray cats. In intestacy the law already looked after the surviv'ors; some wives were provided for in their husband’s lifetime; and what of the spouse with ample independent means? The Bill was carried by 149 votes to 28. The measure was referred to a joint committee of Lords and Commons.

The present English law—except to secure a handsome legacy to itself—the ‘ Daily Telegraph ’ points out, makes no restriction on the freedom of testamentary bequest. But Scots and other systems of law derived from the Roman law do. Under Scots law onethird or one-half, according to whether there are children or not, is the property of the surviving spouse whatever dispositions have been made in the will. Some of the dominions, notably New Zealand, adopt a different system. They provide no fixed proportion, but give the courts power to relieve hard cases.