Section — Konings, Theologia Moralis
§ II. On Wives
- By our law a wife can contract:
1° Concerning goods of which she has perfect dominion (see n. 605 sq.). Yet she cannot hand them over to her husband by Common Law unless a) by a written instrument she has testified her free consent, and b) while the man is not present, she has been questioned concerning it.1
2° As to those things which are necessary for her condition and decent support, except nevertheless the case in which either with an adulterer, or otherwise without grave cause, she has departed spontaneously from the home of her husband (n. 445. 3°).
3° Where, as is permitted to her in certain States, she attends to public and separate commerce.
Notes to n. 840. (1) Kent, Vol. II. n. 166. 167.
- Resolutions. - 1° If a wife contracts without the consent of the husband with injury to his rights or goods, the contract is altogether void. But a wife of bad faith, although in that case she cannot obligate the husband, is nevertheless bound to repair damage inflicted upon another.
2° Nullity of the wife's contract can be invoked by the man in conscience, even if he has not suffered injury properly so called, because the nullity is sanctioned chiefly for his favor.
3° The wife herself can also invoke the nullity of the contract, as it seems, although the law does not intend precisely to favor her; because there does not seem a sufficient motive for excluding her from the benefit of the law, provided she did not deceive the other party. - But she must return everything in which she has become richer, and things must be restored into the same state as they were before the contract, provided she herself was not injured and deceived. But often by reason of deceit she must be excluded from the benefit of the law.
4° A wife who asks money from another as a loan for consumption for her husband, obligating herself to restore it in default of the husband, is bound to restore if the man cannot or will not make restitution; for she was the cause absolutely determining the contract. Therefore she must fulfill the obligation freely taken up, especially when the man is dead; otherwise she would become of bad faith. A fortiori a wife must restore money borrowed by herself for her own utility, without the husband's knowledge. For thus natural equity cries out.