Melville Fuller

“ But if an instrument settling property upon a married woman provides that she may pledge it for her husband's debts, there is nothing in the statute to prevent her from so doing.
It is not wrong in itself for a wife, of her own free will, to devote her separate property to the relief of her husband. Obedience to the dictates of duty, or even yielding to the impulses of affection, has in itself no tendency to impair the happiness of the family, but the contrary. ”

“ Every restriction upon her power in it must be complied with; but, while the wife may contract, she cannot bind her separate estate by any contract of suretyship, nor by any assumption of the debts of her husband; and any sale of her separate estate, made to a creditor of her husband in extinguishment of his debts, shall be absolutely void.' While before this enactment a married woman could bind her separate estate for her husband's debts if she held the same free from restriction, the statute rendered that no longer possible, by imposing a restriction where none existed. ”

“ The public justice, police, order, safety, revenue, health, religion, or morality is not involved in preventing wives from devoting their property to the payment of their husbands' debts.' Hence, while the state has seen fit to impose a restriction where the instrument of gift is silent, or the wife otherwise holds by an unqualified ownership, it does not follow that the statute can be extended, upon grounds of general public policy, to destroy a power expressly bestowed, and render property inalienable which the donor granted upon condition that it might be conveyed as specified. ”