WIFE’S SAYINGS

Waikato Times, Volume 194, Issue 22246, 15 January 1944, Page 7

WIFE’S SAYINGS

HOUSEKEEPING MONEY PROPERTY OF HUSBAND English newspapers. to hand contain reports of the proceedings before the Court of Appeal when it was decided that money which a married woman is able to save out of her husband’s allowance, or from pay- | ments from lodgers, is the property ! of the husband. An appeal which sought to establish that the wife had . the right to keep the money was I dismissed with costs. | Two women barristers, Miss Con- | stance Colwill and Miss Knight Dix, | instructed by a woman solicitor, appeared on behalf of the appellant, Mrs Dorothy Ursula Blackwell. A third woman barrister, Miss Venetia Stephenson, held a watching brief for the Married Women’s Association.

At Oxford County Court Judge J H. D. Hurst decided that the money saved by a wife belonged to the husband, and made an order awarding to Mr John Henry Blackwell, of Cranham Street, Oxford, £lO3 10s standing to the credit of his wife, Mrs Dorothy Blackwell, with the Oxford and District Co-operative Society, Limited. Miss Colwill said, in prosecuting the appeal, that in 1931 Mrs Blackwell had a share in the Co-operative Society. In 1936 she started taking in ledgers. Mr and Mrs Blackwell separated in 1941. The County Court judge had found that the £lO3 10s was money derived from the wife’s housekeeping allowance given to her by her husband. Miss Colwill submitted that there was an agreement between husband and wife that any money made out of the lodgers was to be for Mrs Blackwell’s separate use. She added that the wife said that she was saving for herself and her child. “Hard on the Husband” Lord Justice Scott: Rather hard on the husband. Lord Justice Luxmoore (to Miss Colwill): Do you admit that the wife’s savings from housekeeping would be the husband’s? Miss Colwill: No. Lord Justice Goddard: Then, if a husband gives his wife £5 a week and she wants to save it all and does not spend it but puts it in the bank, the husband is to go short of food while she builds up a banking account. That does not seem right to me. Miss Colwill argued that any profit from the lodgers came from the wife’s physical effort. Lord Justice Goddard (to Miss Colwill): On your argument, if the husband wanted roast beef for dinner his wife could say: “No, I shall get corned beef and save the balance.” It is a most astonishing proposition that she can spend as little as she likes and save the rest. Miss Colwill argued that housekeeping was a skilled occupation. Even if a wife saved only 2s or 3s a week she was entitled to keep the money. Lord Justice Goddard: That is not law; it is ethics. Do you suggest that she is employed? If so, who is her employer? I should be very sorry to lay down that a wife is her husband’s servant. Miss Colwill: She is an equal partner and can earn money by reason of her partnership. Lord Justice Goddard: Who is to pay her? Miss Colwill: She takes her money out of the housekeeping money. Temptation to Stint Wife Lord Justice Goddard: That means her husband pays her. It would be a dreadful thing if it were held that money saved by the wife belonged to her. It would mean that every husband in a working-class household would be tempted to stint his wife as much as he could and she would have to ask him if she wanted a coin to buy a pennyworth of salt. Miss Colwill: If Mrs Blackwell had been a housekeeper she would have been entitled to her expenses. She is in a worse position than a housekeeper. Lord Justice Luxmoore: But she has a status which a housekeeper has not. We cannot upset law which has been settled many, many years. If you want the law altered you must get Parliament to do it. Lord Justice Goddard said that profits from the lodgers were the husband’s. Their money was paid to him, although the wife recei*red it. Lord Justice Scott, dismissing the appeal, said: “There is no justification at all for the contention that, where a husband hands to his wife an allowance for housekeeping purposes, the husband is to be taken, as a matter of law, as presenting the savings out of that money to the wife for her sole use.” Lord Justice Luxmoore agreed. Lord Justice Goddard, also agreeing, said that even if there had been an agreement between the husband and the wife with regard to savings out of housekeeping money this sort of domestic agreement would not necessarily result in a legal contract.