Legal Status of Women in IowaWilson, Jennie L. (Jennie Lansley)
History
Legal Status of Women in Iowa
Wilson, Jennie L. (Jennie Lansley)
Women -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Iowa
The expenses of the family and the education of the children are
chargeable upon the property of both husband and wife, or of either of
them, and in relation thereto they may be sued jointly or separately.
[§3405.] Both husband and wife are personally responsible for family
expenses. The credit may be extended to the husband and the contract
made with him alone, and the wife will be liable though she may have no
knowledge of the purchase and has given no consent thereto. It is
sufficient to show that the articles were used, or kept for use in the
family, and a judgment may be rendered against the wife alone. But the
husband cannot subject the property of his wife to any liability for
articles for family use when it appears that such articles were not a
necessity, if the wife has objected to the purchase and notified the
seller that she will not pay for the same. "Expenses of the family," are
not limited to necessary expenses, but whatever is kept or used in the
family is included in the term. A piano, an organ, a watch and other
jewelry, a cook stove and fixtures, have all been held to come within
the term "family expense," for which the property of the wife is liable.
But a reaping machine, though used by the husband in the business by
which he supports his family, is not a legitimate item of family
expense, nor can a plow be included therein. The expense of treatment of
a wife at a hospital for the insane, has been held not to be a family
expense. Money borrowed by the husband and used in the purchase of
articles which, if obtained on credit, would constitute items of family
expense, cannot itself form such an item of family expense, that the
wife may be held liable, unless the money was furnished at her request,
and the account assigned to the party furnishing the money. If a
merchant with whom the husband has no account is notified in writing,
not to sell goods to the wife and charge them to him, the merchant
cannot hold the husband responsible, unless it appears that the latter
fails to provide necessaries otherwise for his family. If the family is
supported in whole, or in part, by the wife, she cannot recover back the
money thus expended, from her husband or his estate, as the law places
such duty equally on both.
[Sidenote: Removal from homestead.]
Neither husband nor wife can remove the other, nor their children from
their homestead without his or her consent, and if he abandons her, she
is entitled to the custody of their minor children, unless the district
court, upon application for that purpose, shall, for good cause,
otherwise direct [§3406.]
[Sidenote: Conveyance of property.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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