Subject_1 HUSBAND and WIFE. Subject_2 DIVISION IX.
The wife's personal privileges.
Janet Churnside v. James Currie
Date: 11 July 1789 Case No. No 298.
A husband having left Scotland, his wife was found liable to personal diligence, as an unmarried woman, for debt's contracted after his departure.
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The husband of Janet Churnside having left Scotland in bankrupt circumstances, she entered into trade in order to maintain herself and her children.
Being charged with horning for payment of a bill of exchange granted by her to James Currie, she offered a bill of suspension, founded on the general rule of law, that a woman vestita viro could not, by any contract, subject herself to personal diligence.
This plea however was entirely disregarded, as inapplicable to a case like the present, where the debt had been contracted by a wife in her own name, while her husband was out of the kingdom. To refuse the ordinary legal compulsatories, in such circumstances as these, would, it was observed, in the end prove hurtful to the women themselves, by preventing them from gaining a livelihood in trade, at a time when their husbands could not afford them any support.
The bill of suspension was refused by the Lord Ordinary. And
A reclaiming petition being preferred, it was refused without answers.
Lord Ordinary, Gardenstone.For the petitioner, John Erskine.
Fol. Dic. v. 3. p. 285. Fac. Col. No 78. p. 141.
