ALIMONY (from the Latin alimonium or alimonia, a word which is used by the classical writers, and signifies "maintenance or support"). By the law of England a wife is presumed to have surrendered the whole of her property to her husband upon marriage, and consequently to be entirely dependent upon him for her future maintenance. Upon this principle, it is reasonable that if a separation takes place, the wife should have a portion of her husband's estate allotted to her for her subsistence; and this allotment, when made by the ecclesiastical courts, is termed "alimony." The right of a wife to this provision depends, however, entirely upon the truth of the presumption, that she has not sufficient means, independently of her husband, to support her in her appropriate station in life; for in cases where she has a separate and sufficient income beyond the husband's control, the wife is not entitled to alimony.

Alimony, in common with other subjects of matrimonial litigation, falls properly under the exclusive cognizance of the ecclesiastical courts; for though courts of equity have not unfrequently decreed a separate maintenance resembling alimony, yet their interference in such cases seems to have proceeded upon the ground of enforcing some express agreement between the parties, and is not founded upon the right of the wife to a portion of her husband's estate, resulting from the general principle above stated. In the ecclesiastical court, the allotment of alimony is incidental to a decree of divorce a mensa et thoro upon the ground of cruelty or adultery on the part of the husband. It may be either temporary or permanent: in the first case, while the proceedings in the suit for a divorce are depending, the court will, generally speaking, allot alimony to the wife pendente lite, or during the continuance of litigation; and in the second case, when a decree of divorce has been obtained on either of the above grounds, a permanent provision may be given to her; in both cases the allotment is made in the form of a stipend for her maintenance from year to year, and is

The amount of alimony depends wholly upon the discretion of the court, which is exercised according to the circumstances of each particular case. In forming their estimate in this respect, the courts have held that, after a separation on account of the husband's misconduct, the wife is to be alimented as if she were living with him as his wife; they attend carefully to the nature as well as to the amount of the husband's means, drawing a distinction between an income derived from property and an income derived from personal exertion.

The station in life of both parties, and the fortune brought by the wife, are also considered; and much stress is laid upon the disposal of the children and the expense of educating them. The conduct of the parties forms also a very material consideration: where the wife has eloped from her husband, or where the sentence of divorce proceeds upon the ground of her adultery, the law will not compel the allowance of alimony. In assigning the amount of alimony in order to discourage vexatious litigation, as well as upon the just principle that innocence of imputed misconduct is to be presumed until the contrary is proved, alimony during the continuance of a suit is always much less in amount than permanent alimony. Thus in the former, the proportion usually allowed is onefifth of the net income of the husband: in the latter, after a charge of cruelty or adultery on the part of the husband has been established, a moiety of the whole income is frequently given. This seems to be the result of numerous cases in which the amount of alimony has been decided; but no general rule can be laid down upon this subject.

The assignment of alimony during the continuance of a suit will not discharge the husband from liability for his wife's contracts; but when the court has allotted her a permanent maintenance upon the termination of a suit, the wife is liable for her own contracts, and the husband is wholly discharged from them. On this ground, and with a view to the protection of the husband, the ecclesiastical court has sometimes granted alimony in cases

where the wife, by her own profligacy or extravagance, has thrown enormous expense on her husband, and has thereby forfeited her equitable title to a subsistence from his estate.

The equivalent in Scottish law to the term alimony is aliment or alimentary allowance. Allowances coming under this character, or, as they may generally be described, periodical payments suffi cient only for the bare support of the recipient, and made to him in the understanding that he requires such an allowance for his support, are not attachable by the process of arrestment [ARRESTMENT]. A wife is entitled to aliment from her husband when she is deserted by him, when she is judicially separated from him, and during the continuance of an action of divorce, whether at his or her own instance. She has no right to aliment in the case of a voluntary contract of separation. It is a general principle of the law of Scotland, that a person who by disease or otherwise is unable to support himself, is entitled to an alimentary allowance from the nearest relation he can prove capable of affording it, but the House of Lords have shown a disposition to restrict the operation of this principle. The father of an illegitimate child is bound to make an alimentary allowance in its favour, the amount and the time during which it is to continue depending on his rank and fortune.

ALLEGIANCE, or LIGEANCE, is defined by Coke thus:-" Ligeance, à ligando, is the highest and greatest obligation of duty and obedience that can be. Ligeance is the true and faithful obedience of a liegeman or subject to his liege lord or sovereign. Ligeantia est vinculum fidei: ligeantia est legis essentia." The notion of Ligeance, or Allegiance, is that of a bond or tie between the perSon who owes it and the person to whom it is due. After this definition, Coke gives a tabular view of the various kinds or degrees of allegiance (Co. Lit. 129 A). Allegiance is due from those who are natural-born subjects, and also from denizens and those who have been naturalized. A natural-born subject is called a natural liegeman, and the king is called his natural liege lord.

The allegiance of a subject, according to the law of England, is permanent and universal; he can, by no act of his own, relieve himself from the duties which it involves; nor can he by emigration, or any voluntary change of residence, escape its legal consequences.

An alien owes a local and temporary allegiance so long as he continues within the dominions of the king; and he may be prosecuted and punished for treason.

A usurper, in the undisturbed possession of the crown, is entitled to allegiance; and, accordingly, our history furnishes an instance in which a treason committed against the person of Henry VI. was punished in the reign of his successor, even after an act of parliament had declared the former a usurper.

An oath of allegiance has, from the earliest period, been exacted from naturalborn subjects of these realms; but its form has undergone some variations. In its ancient form, the party promised "to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honour, and not to know or hear of any ill or damage intended him without defending him therefrom." The modern oath, enforced by statute since the Revolution, is of more simple form, and is expressed in more indefinite terms:-"I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her majesty Queen Victoria."

The alteration of the form has not varied the nature of the subject's duty, which is, indeed, owing from him antecedently to any oath, and although he may never have been called upon to take it. The oath is imposed by way of additional security for the performance of services which are due from the subject from the time of his birth. The king also, according to the old law writers, is said to be bound to protect his liegeman, or subject, because allegiance is a reciprocal tie (reciprocum ligamen); the protection of the king is assigned as the reason or foundation of the liegeman's duty. This language is by no means exact; but it seems to show that the notion of a contract is involved in the theory of allegiance, at least as it is explained by some law

writers. The king can, by proclamation, summon his liegemen to return to the kingdom, an instance of which occurred in 1807, when the King of England declared, by proclamation, that the kingdom was menaced and endangered, and he recalled from foreign service all seamen and sea-faring men who were naturalborn subjects, and ordered them to withdraw themselves and return home, on pain of being proceeded against for a contempt. It was further declared that no foreign letters of naturalization could, in any manner, divest his natural-born subjects of their allegiance, or alter their duty to their lawful king.

By the old law of the land, every male subject of the age of twelve years (with certain exceptions) was bound to take the oath of allegiance when summoned to the courts called Leets and Tourns; and a variety of statutes, from the reign of Elizabeth down to the present century, have expressly required it from public functionaries and other persons before they enter upon their respective duties, or practise in their several professions. By 1 George I. c. 13, two justices of the peace, or other commissioners appointed by the king, may tender the oath to any person suspected of disaffection.

A violation of allegiance is treason, the highest offence which a subject can commit. [TREASON.]

The law of England permits a foreigner to be naturalized here, by which naturalization the foreigner owes allegiance to the British crown. If, as is nearly always the case, he still continues to owe allegiance to his former state or sovereign, it may happen that his new allegiance may, under certain circumstances, as for instance in time of war, place him in a difficult situation. This, however, is a matter that concerns himself mainly the state which receives him as a subject, is willing to do so, if he will accept the terms of naturalization.

Those who wish to become more fully acquainted with this subject and with the distinctions between liege fealty, or allegiance, and simple fealty, or fealty by reason of tenure, may consult Hale's Pleas of the Crown, vol. i. p. 58, et seq., and Mr. Justice Foster's Discourse on High Treason.

It is not yet absolutely settled whether a citizen of the United States of Nort America can divest himself of his alleg ance. The law of the United States allow foreigners to be naturalized, but first re quires them to abjure their former all giance, and does not require any eviden that the state or sovereign to whom th foreigner owes allegiance has release him from it. But it cannot be inferre that, because the United States allow foreigners to become American citizens they also allow their own citizens to d. vest themselves of their allegiance. Th vague expressions used in some of th State Constitutions, that the citizens have natural and inherent right to emigrate. do not decide the question, even if t words mean that a citizen can renoun his allegiance to his State; for an Amer can citizen owes allegiance to the United States primarily, as it is said. The bes opinion is, that in the matter of allegiane the rule of the English common law prevails in the United States, and that an American citizen therefore cannot renounce his allegiance to the United State without their expressed consent, wha. can be given in no other way than by law. The cases relating to this subject which have been brought before the federal courts of the United States an discussed in Kent's Commentaries. vol. ii. 4th edition.

ALLIANCE. [TREATY.] ALLIANCE, HOLY. [HOLY ALLIANCE.]

ALLIANCE, TRIPLE. [TRIPLE ALLIANCE.]

ALLO'DIUM, or ALO'DIUM, property held in absolute dominion, witho rendering any service, rent, fealty, other consideration whatsoever to a superior. [UDAL TENURE.] It is opposed to Feodum or Fief [FIEF; FEUDAL SI TEM], which means property the use which is bestowed by the proprietor up another, on condition that the person t whom the gift is made shall perform certain services to the giver, upon failure of which, or upon the determination of the period to which the gift was confined, the property reverts to the original possessor. Hence arises the mutual relation of lord and vassal.

When the barbarian tribes from the northern parts of Europe overran the Western Roman empire, in the fifth and sixth centuries, they made a partition of the conquered provinces between themselves and the former possessors. The lands which were thus acquired by the Franks, the conquerors of Gaul, were termed allodial. These were subject to no burden except that of military service, the neglect of which was punished with a fine (called Heribannum) proportioned to the wealth of the delinquent. They passed to all the children equally, or, in default of children, to the next of kin of the last proprietor. Of these allodial possessions there was a peculiar species denominated Salic, from which females were excluded. Besides the lands distributed among the nation of the Franks, others termed fiscal lands (from Fiscus, a word which, among the Romans, originally signified the property which belonged to the emperor as emperor) were set apart to form a fund which might support the dignity of the king, and supply him with the means of rewarding merit and encouraging valour. These, under the name of benefices (beneficia), were granted to favoured subjects, upon the condition, either expressed or implied, of the grantees rendering to the king personal service in the field. It has been supposed by some writers, that these benefices were originally resumable at pleasure, that they were subsequently granted for life, and finally became hereditary. But there is no satisfactory proof of the first stage in this progress. (Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. i. chap. 2, 8th ed.)

From the end of the fifth to the end of the eighth century, the allodial tenures prevailed in France. But there were so many advantages attending the beneficiary tenure, that even in the eighth century it appears to have gained ground considerably. The composition for homicide, the test of rank among the barbarous nations of the north of Europe, was, in the case of a king's vassal, treble the amount of what it was in the case of an ordinary free-born Frank. A contumacious resistance on the part of the former to the process of justice in the king's courts, was passed over in silence; while

the latter, for the same offence, was punished with confiscation of goods. The latter also was condemned to undergo the ordeal of boiling water for the least crimes; the former, for murder only. A vassal of the king was not obliged to give evidence against his fellow-vassal in the king's courts. Moreover, instead of paying a fine, like the free allodialist, for neglect of military service, he had only to abstain from flesh and wine for as many days as he had failed in attendance upon the army. (Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, lib. xxxi.)

The allodial proprietors, wishing to acquire the important privileges of king's vassals, without losing their domains, invented the practice of surrendering them to the king, in order to receive them back for themselves and their heirs upon the feudal conditions. When the benefices once became hereditary, the custom of what is called subinfeudation followed; that is to say, the possessors granted portions of their estates to be holden of themselves by a similar tenure. This custom began to gain ground even in the eighth century; but the disorders which ensued upon the death of Charlemagne in the ninth century, paved the way to the establishment of the feudal system upon a more extended basis. The vast empire which had been held together by the wisdom and vigour of one man, now crumbled into pieces. The provincial governors usurped the authority and tyrannized over the subjects of his feeble descendants. The Hungarians, a tribe that emerged from Asia at the latter end of the ninth century, spread terror and devastation over Germany, Italy, and part of France. The Scandinavian pirates, more commonly known by the name of Normans, infested the coast with perpetual incursions. Against this complication of evils, the only defence was in the reciprocity of service and protection afforded by the feudal system. The allodial proprietor was willing, upon any terms, to exchange the name of liberty for the security against rapine and anarchy which a state of vassalage offered. In the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries allodial lands in France became for the most part feudal; that is, either they were sur