Edward Douglass White

“ It is a misconception of that system to suppose that because power was vested in the husband to dispose of the community acquet during marriage, as if it were his own, therefore by law the community property belonged solely to the husband. The conferring on the husband the legal agency to administer and dispose of the property involved no negation of the community, since the common ownership would attach to the result of the sale of the property. ”

“ It cannot be doubted, under the text of the act of 1873, the property relations of husband and wife were controlled by what is demominated the community system, and that in consonance therewith the statute referred to treated property acquired during marriage with community money as community or common property. Although this is patent, the argument is that the provision in the statute giving the administration and disposition of the community property to the husband operated to destroy the community system and render it impossible, under the statute, for community or common property to exist. ”

“ The fallacy which is involved in the contention that under the laws in force at the time the property was bought by the husband, with community money, it became exclusively his, and that the wife had no community interest therein, is plainly demonstrated by a consideration of the import of the laws of Washington existing at the time the purchase was made, as construed both by the supreme court of the territory and of the state of Washington. ”