Bartlett v. Bartlett
Bartlett v. Bartlett
Opinion of the Court
We can see no good reason for doubting the validity of the deed under which the demandant claims title. It is executed according to the mode prescribed in Gen. Sts. c. 108, §§ 2, 3, for the conveyance of real property belonging to the wife, whether the same is held simply in her own right, or as her sole and separate estate, free from the interference and control of her husband. From an early period in the history of this state, it has been usual for married women to convey lands of which they were seised in their own right by joining their husbands as grantors in deeds in the common form. By the provincial statute of 9 Will. III. enacted in the year 1697, Anc. Chart. 303, it was provided that all deeds or conveyances of land signed and sealed by the parties granting the same having good and lawful authority thereto, and acknowledged and recorded, should be valid to pass the same, without any other act or ceremony whatever. Under this enactment it was always held that a wife might convey her real property by joining: as
It was objected by the counsel for the tenants that the deed in question was invalid because it conflicted with the provisions of the statute relating to the separate property of married women. Gen. Sts. c. 108, § 1 et seq. But we can see no ground for this objection. That statute was not designed to abridge the power of married women, or to give them less authority over their separate real estate, which might be held by them free from the control and interference of their husbands, than they had at common law over lands held by them in their own right. Such would be the result, if a married woman could not convey her separate property to secure a debt due from her husband. But the decisive answer to this objection is, that the statute expressly authorizes a married woman to sell and convey her separate real property in the same manner as if she were sole, except that a deed of it shall not be valid, unless her husband joins in the conveyance or assents to it in writing. As has been already said, the deed to the demandant conforms to the requisitions of the statute.
It was also suggested that the conveyance was void because it was made to secure a note signed by a married woman, and that this being a void contract as to her, the deed of mortgage was also void. This might be a very sound argument, if the note was signed by the married woman alone. In such case, the note being void the demandant would not be entitled to judgment for possession. But the note is not void. It is a valid contract binding on the other promisors. It is therefore the ordinary case of a conveyance of real estate by a valid deed
It is hardly necessary to add, that the words in the last clause of the deed by which the wife released her claim to dower in the granted premises cannot be held to control all the previous parts of the deed. Such an interpretation would destroy the legal effect of the previous 'grant, and make the deed utterly void as a present conveyance of title in the granted premises. Such was clearly not the intent of the parties. The more reasonable conclusion is that this clause was inserted either without any very definite purpose, or, inasmuch as the estate conveyed had formerly been the property of the husband, it might have been intended to release a right of dower which it was supposed still remained in the wife.
Conditional judgment for the demandmt.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Charles L. Bartlett v. Franklin Bartlett & wife
- Status
- Published