In an admirable letter to the Times of March 14, 1878, Mrs. Ursule Bright, alluding to the "obscurity and uncertainty of the law," points out
"The effect of that obscurity upon the credit of respectable married women earning their own and their children's bread, in any employment or business carried on separately from their husband; the inconvenience and risk to their creditors is, as you have most ably pointed out, great; but the injury to honest wives is far greater. It puts them at a considerable disadvantage in the labour market and in business. A married woman, for instance, keeping a little shop, may sue for debts due to her, but has no corresponding liability to be sued. If the whereabouts of the husband is not very clearly defined, it is evident she may have some difficulty in obtaining credit.
"Again, what employer of labour can with any security engage the services of a married woman? She may leave her work at the mill at an hour's notice unfinished, and her employer has no remedy against her for breach of contract, as a married woman can make no contract which is legally binding. There is no question that such a state of the law must operate as a restriction upon her power to support herself and family.
"The state of muddle of the present law is almost inconceivable. Even now a woman need not pay her debts contracted before marriage out of earnings made after marriage. Suppose an artist or a literary woman to marry when burdened with debts and having no property; should she be earning £1,000 or £10,000 a year by her profession after marriage, these earnings could not be made liable for her debts contracted before marriage."
It cannot too plainly be repeated that non-liability to be sued means non-existence of credit.
The law, as it stands at present, is the old Common Law, modified by the Acts of 1870 and 1873. Archbold says—dealing with indictments for theft—"Where the person named as owner appears to be a married woman, the defendant must, unless the indictment is amended, be acquitted . . . because in law the goods are the property of the husband; even though she be living apart from her husband upon an income arising from property vested in trustees for her separate use, because the goods cannot be the property of the trustees; and, in law, a married woman has no property" (Archbold's "Criminal Cases," p. 43). Archbold gives as exceptions to this general rule, where a judicial separation has taken place, where the wife has obtained a protection order, or where the property is such as is covered by the Married Women's Property Act, 1870. "Where a married woman lived apart from her husband, upon an income aris-
