Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for ReformBesant, Annie
Philosophy
Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for Reform
Besant, Annie
Marriage -- Great Britain; Marriage law -- Great Britain
"Injuries which may be offered to a person, considered as a husband, and
which are cognizable in a court of common law, are principally three:
1, abduction, or taking away a man's wife; 2, beating her; 3, indirectly
causing her some personal hurt, by negligence or otherwise. 1. As to the
first sort, abduction, or taking her away, this may either be by fraud
and persuasion, or open violence; though the law in both cases supposes
force and constraint, the wife having no power to consent, and therefore
gives a remedy by action of trespass; and the husband is also entitled
to recover damages in an action on the case against such as persuade and
entice the wife to live separate from him without a sufficient cause....
2, 3. The second and third injuries above mentioned are constituted by
beating a man's wife, or otherwise ill-using her; or causing hurt to her
by negligence. For a common assault upon, or battery, or imprisonment,
of the wife, the law gives the usual remedy to recover damages, by
action of trespass, which must be brought in the names of the husband
and wife jointly: but if the beating or other maltreatment be so
enormous, that thereby the husband is deprived for any time of the
company and assistance of his wife, the law then gives him a separate
remedy by action for this ill-usage, _per quod consortium amisit_, in
which he may recover a satisfaction in damages. By a provision of the C.
L. Proc. Act, 1852, s. 40, in an action by husband and wife jointly for
an injury to the wife, the husband is now allowed to add a claim in
his own right--as for the loss of the wife's society--or where a joint
trespass and assault have been committed on the husband and his wife"
(vol. iii., pp. 149, 150). So far is recognised the husband's complete
claim over his wife's person, that anyone who receives a married woman
into his house and gives her shelter there after having received notice
from her husband that he is not to permit her to remain under his roof,
actually becomes liable in damages to the husband. The husband cannot
sue for damages if he has turned his wife out of doors, or if he has
lost his right of control by cruelty or adultery; short of this, he may
obtain damages against any friend or relative of the woman who gives her
shelter. The wife has no such remedy against anyone who may induce the
husband to live apart, or who may give him house-room at his own wish.
The reason for the law being as we find it, is stated by Broom without
the smallest compunction: "We may observe that in these relative
injuries notice is only taken of the wrong done to the superior of the
parties related, by the breach and dissolution of either the relation
itself, or at least the advantage accruing therefrom; while the loss of
the inferior by such injuries is, except where the death of a parent has
been caused by negligence, unregarded. One reason for which may be, that
the inferior has no kind of property in the company, care, or assistance
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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