In view of the high importance of preserving intact the confidence and security of the marriage state, the law regards confidential communications between husband and wife as privileged, and refuses to permit either to be interrogated as to what occurred in their confidential intercourse during their marital relations. The law has placed its protecting seal upon all such communications, and upon whatever else has come to the knowledge of either by means of the hallowed confidence which that relation inspires, and forbids its divulgence in testimony even though the other be no longer living.8 The seal once fixed, remains forever, and neither death nor subsequent divorce removes it.

This wise rule of the common law has been very generally declared by statute in the United States.

2 Griffeth vs. Griffeth, 162 I11., 374.