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LEGAL-UNITIES DOCTRINE

legal-unities doctrine.Hist. The common-law rule that a wife had no separate existence from her husband. —
Also termed doctrine of legal unities; unities doctrine of marriage. See MARRIED WOMEN'S
PROPERTY ACTS; SPOUSAL-UNITY DOCTRINE .

DOCTRINE OF LEGAL UNITIES


doctrine of legal unities. See LEGAL-UNITIES DOCTRINE.

UNITIES DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE


unities doctrine of marriage. See LEGAL-UNITIES DOCTRINE.

SPOUSAL-UNITY DOCTRINE
spousal-unity doctrine. Hist.1. Family law. The common-law rule that a husband and wife
were a legal unity. • Under the spousal-unity doctrine, the husband had all rights to the possession,
management, control, and alienation of property. The wife had no interests in property. — Also
termed doctrine of spousal unity. See MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY ACTS. Cf.
LEGAL-UNITIES DOCTRINE . 2.Tax. The rule that a person and that person's spouse are treated
as one. • This rule has been repealed. — Also termed spousal-unity rule.

SPOUSE
spouse. One's husband or wife by lawful marriage; a married person. [Cases: Husband and
Wife 1.]

innocent spouse. Tax. A spouse who may be relieved of liability for taxes on income that the
other spouse did not include on a joint tax return. • The innocent spouse must prove that the other
spouse omitted the income, that the innocent spouse did not know and had no reason to know of
the omission, and that it would be unfair under the circumstances to hold the innocent spouse
liable. [Cases: Internal Revenue 3566.1; Taxation 1014. C.J.S. Internal Revenue § 366; Taxation § 1703.]

SPOUSE-BREACH
spouse-breach. See ADULTERY.

MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY ACTS


married women's property acts.(sometimes cap.) Statutes enacted to remove a married
woman's disabilities; esp. statutes that abolished the common-law prohibitions against a married
woman's contracting, suing and being sued, or acquiring, holding, and conveying property in her
own right, free from any restrictions by her husband. • For example, these acts abolished the
spousal-unity doctrine. In actual usage, the term almost always appears in the plural form (acts,
not act), except when referring to a particular statute. — Also termed married women's acts;
married woman's property acts; married woman's acts; emancipation acts; married women's
emancipation acts. See MERGER DOCTRINE OF HUSBAND AND WIFE ; LEGAL-UNITIES
DOCTRINE.

“The women's rights movement existed throughout the nineteenth century. It succeeded in
partially reducing the legal disabilities of married women during the second half of that century by
bringing about the enactment in all states of Married Women's Property Acts. The purpose of these
Acts was to place married women on an equal footing with their husbands with respect to
contracts, earnings, the ownership of property and the right to sue or be sued, but as they were
construed by the courts they frequently failed to accomplish the intended
reforms.” Homer H. Clark Jr. & Ann Laquer Estin, Domestic Relations: Cases and Problems 8 (6th ed.
2000).
MARRIED WOMAN'S SEPARATE ESTATE IN EQUITY
married woman's separate estate in equity. Hist. At common law, a trust that a rich family
could set up for a daughter so that she would not lose control of her own money and property to
her husband. • The daughter could escape the severe limits of coverture by having her family
establish a separate estate in equity, allowing her the benefit of income that was not controlled by
her husband even if the husband was named as trustee. See COVERTURE; MARRIED
WOMEN'S PROPERTY ACTS .

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