11
6. Vicarious Responsibility of Husband Towards Third Persons for his Wife's Misconduct.
The husband is liable, and his wife is not, for all the civil wrongs (torts) she may commit. He has no control over her, but serves as her whipping-boy. This, though she publicly defames and insults him in every way, and has deserted him.
As Sir Frank Lockwood put it, one has the deep consolation of knowing that if Mrs. Jackson utters slanders Mr. Jackson can be sued.
Under the older English law, when the wife was "sous la verge de son marrye" (the canon law sub virga viri), the rule was reasonable enough. Now, however, it is only an illustration of the pro-feminist bias of the Courts. Every moth-eaten scrap of privilege, which is in favour of the woman, they retain.
All privileges of the husband, no matter how firmly established, they deny as having ever existed. Look at the astounding declaration of Lord Halsbury in the Jackson case, that the husband never had the right in English law to restrain his wife!!!
7. Impunity for Crimes Committed in Husband's Presence.
The "Doctrine of Coercion."
Again, a pious archeology animates the judges when the woman is to be benefited. Notwithstanding the revolutionary changes in the law, another old-world privilege of the "woman under the rod" is reserved for the dominating female of to-day. If her husband is present when she is committing a crime, a married woman is presumed by an intelligent administration of justice to have acted under his coercion. This is sometimes amusing, when, as often happens, the woman is the instigator of the crime.
