Sec 79

Both in England and in the United States, statutes have been adopted by which the common law restriction just stated has been more or less removed.4 The statutes in force in this relation are too numerous, too various, and too transitory, to be subjected to classification in this place. In some states modifications have been made annually for a series of years; and the task, as we are told by an able and experienced critic,1 "would involve the collation of two or three hundred separate enactments, in nearly forty different states, during a period of thirty years or more, and which have been discussed in perhaps a thousand or two of decided cases." "The chief embarrassment," it is added, "of any attempt to state accurately or completely the existing law on this subject, would be found in the fact that while these statutes are destroying piecemeal the ancient common-law system of marital property rights, expounded and eulogized by Blackstone, it has not been replaced, even in states where not a vestige of the common law on this subject remains, by a new system, symmetrical, consistent, or complete." So far, however, as concerns the topic immediately before us, we may "say that in most states married women are now made capable of suing and being sued on contracts made by them personally. And as a matter of private international law, we may hold that a married woman incapable of contracting by her personal law, may make a valid contract in a state imposing no such disability.2 - When Married women cannotbind future acquired estate.

By statute disability has been much qualified.

1 This position is taken by Mr. Pollock in his first edition ; Wald's Pollock, 70, citing Lush's Trusts, L. R. 4 Ch. 591; Kead v. Hall, 57 N. H. 482; Bodine v. Kileen, 53 N. Y. 93 ; Nash v. Mitchell, 71 N. Y. 199 ; Fallis v. Keys, 35 Oh. St. 265 ; Norton v. Nichols, 35 Mich. 148 ; Scranton v. Stewart, 52Ind. 68; Nixon v. Halley, 78 111. 611; Patterson v. Lawrence, 90 111. 174. In Mr. Pollock's third edition this position is abandoned, in submission to Pike v. Fitzgibbon, L. R. 17 Ch. D. 454.

2 Merrian v. R. R., 117 Mass. 241; Jackson v. Van Derkuyden, 17 Johns. 167; Carpenters. Schemerhorn, 3Barb. Ch. 314 ; Teal v. Woodworth, 3 Paige, 470; Gledden v. Strupler, 52 Penn. St. 400; Oglesby v. Pasco. 79 111. 164; see as to estoppel, infra, sec 89.

3 Pike v. Fitzgibbon, L. R. 17 Ch. D. 454 (James, Brett, and Colton, L. JJ., reversing S. C, L. R. 14 Ch D. 837, and overruling Flower v. Buller, L. R. 15 Ch. D. 665) ; see Schouler, Husb. and Wife, sec 202. When a woman contracts debts before marriage, these debts, during marriage, cannot be enforced against her separate estate. Vander-heyden v. Mallory, 1 Comst. 452.

4 An article by Mr. Westlake, on English legislation in this relation, will be found in the Revue de droit int. 1871, p. 195. The Pennsylvania rulings are given in Husband's Married Women, sec 44-46. An analysis of American legislation on this topic will be found in Tyler on Inf. and Cov. 2d ed. 1882.

1 Mr. Hitchcock, in 6 South. Law Rev. 635 (Jan. 1881).

2 See Whart. Conf. of Laws, 2d ed. sec 118. A valuable summary of recent statutes on this topic will be found in an appendix to Schouler on Husb. and Wife, 1882. Mr. Hitchcock, in the article above cited, says : "In general these statutes permit married women to make contracts independently of the husband. But here, again, discrepancies appear; some statutes permitting her the largest liberty, including the power to form business partnerships and to contract directly with her husband, while othprs permit her to contract with third persons in general, but not to form partnerships, and not at all with her husband. ... As to the right to become a ' sole trader,' -that is, to carry on business on her own account,- important differences exist in the various statutes."-In Dampf's Appeal, 10 Weekly Notes, 443, the law in Pennsylvania on this point is thus stated by Mercur, J.: "A married woman lacks capacity to convey her real estate otherwise than in the manner prescribed by the statute. (Rumfelt v. Clemens, 46 Penn. St. 455 ; Dunham v. Wright, 53 Penn. St. 167 ; Brown v. Bennett, 75 Penn. St. 420 ; Innis v. Templeton, Pittsburgh Legal Journal of Oct. 20, 1880, p. 73.) It is true this rule does not apply to a sale or transfer of a wife's personal estate, nor to her receipt of money. The 4th section of the act of 11th April. 1856 (Purd. Dig. 1009), declares, when a married woman shall be entitled to a legacy or to a distributive share of the personal estate, or of the proceeds a woman sets up a separate estate as against her husband's creditors, the burden is on her to show that the property is really her own.1.