Henry Billings Brown

“ It will be observed that, by the first section, all the property of a married woman owned at the time of marriage, or which shall afterwards come to her in any manner or from any person, shall remain her sole and separate property, notwithstanding her marriage, thus enlarging the operation of § 727, which limited it to such as she had not acquired by gift or conveyance from her husband. By the second section power is given to her to bargain, sell, and convey her property as if she were a married man, but nothing is said about her power to bequeath it. ”

“ The word 'property,' used in § 728, includes every right and interest which a person has in lands and chattels, and is broad enough to include everything which one person can own and transfer to another. The main object of the revision was to incorporate all the existing statutes in a single volume, that a person desiring to know the written law upon any subject might learn it by an examination of that volume, without the necessity of referring to prior statutes upon the subject. If the language of the revision be plain upon its face, the person examining it ought to be able to rely upon it. ”

“ The general rule is perfectly well settled that, where a statute is of doubtful meaning and susceptible upon its face of two constructions, the court may look into prior and contemporaneous acts, the reasons which induced the act in question, the mischiefs intended to be remedied, the extraneous circumstances, and the purpose intended to be accomplished by it, to determine its proper construction. But where the act is clear upon its face, and when standing alone it is fairly susceptible of but one construction, that construction must be given to it. ”