were a feme sole, without the intervention of any trustee. She is also made capable of entering into any contracts in respect of her separate property, and of suing and being sued to the extent of that property in contract, or in tort or otherwise, in all respects as if she were unmarried. Every married woman carrying on a trade separately from her husband is made, in respect of her separate property, subject to the bankruptcy laws, in the same way as if she were a feme sole.

The Act then (u) enacts that every woman who marries after the commencement of the Act shall be entitled to have and to hold as her separate property, and to dispose of in manner aforesaid, all real and personal property which shall belong to her at the time of marriage, or shall devolve upon her after marriage, including any wages, earnings, money and property gained or acquired by her in any employment, trade, or occupation, in which she is engaged, or which she carries on, separately from her husband, or by the exercise of any literary, artistic, or scientific skill. also (v) entitles her to prove as a creditor in her husband's bankruptcy, but subject to the claims of other creditors, for the amount or value of any money or property which she may have lent or entrusted to him.

It

In the case of a woman married before the commencement of the Act her husband's Common Law rights are not interfered with so far as regards property which he has already acquired in her right, but as to any property which she may acquire after the commencement of the Act, she is (w) put in the same position as if she had been married after the Act came into operation.

(u) S. 2.
(v) S. 3.
(w) S. 5.

The Act also contains various sections (x) under which stock standing in the name of a married woman is to be deemed to belong to her for her separate use, and enabling (y) a married woman to effect, for her separate use, a policy upon her own life or the life of her husband. And it gives her (2) whether married before or after the commencement of the Act the same civil, and also, to a great extent, the same criminal, remedies for the protection and security of her separate property as if she were a feme sole.

A wife is to continue (a) liable, to the extent of her separate property, for all debts contracted, and all contracts entered into, by her before marriage; the husband being also (b) liable to the extent of all property belonging to his wife which he has acquired or become entitled to from or through her. And pro

vision is made (c) for the summary determination, by the High Court of Justice, or a County Court, of any question arising between a husband and wife as to the title to any property.

It is expressly enacted (d) that nothing contained in the Act is to affect any settlement, or agreement for a settlement, entered into before marriage, or to render inoperative any restriction against the anticipation of any property or income under any settlement, or agreement for a settlement, will, or other instrument; but no restriction against anticipation contained in any settlement, or agreement for a settlement, of a woman's own property, made or entered into by herself, is to have any validity against her ante-nuptial debts; and no settlement, or agreement for a settlement, is to

have any greater validity against a woman's creditors than a like settlement, or agreement for a settlement, made or entered into by a man would have against his creditors. The effect of this is that, as against her creditors, a marriage settlement of a woman's own property is invalid, to the extent to which such property exceeds in value that which has been brought into settlement by the husband.

This Act repeals the Married Women's Acts, 1870 and 1874, previously mentioned, but with a saving of any right already acquired or thing already done under them.

Equity of redemption the result of a mortgage.

Former law of redemption.

CHAPTER XIII.

OF AN EQUITY OF REDEMPTION.

HITHERTO We have been occupied solely with the consideration of legal estates in land, and it is to them that our attention will be principally confined all through this work. But there is one variety of equitable estates, a notice of which comes fairly within the scope of our reading. This arises when land is pledged, or "mortgaged," to a lender or "mortgagee," as a security for money advanced by him. Here the borrower or "mortgagor" has still an estate or interest left in the land, and it is of this that we now propose to treat.

The word "mortgage" (a dead pledge) is significant of a state of the law which has long passed away. A mortgage, in olden times, was effected by the use of two contemporaneous deeds, of which one set forth that the estate in question had been conveyed absolutely to the mortgagee, whilst the other, known as "the deed of defeasance," provided that it should be re-conveyed to the mortgagor if he, on a specified day, repaid all sums for which the estate was a security. Failing this payment on the precise day, the estate became the absolute property of the mortgagee. Thus, Littleton, writing in the reign of Edward the Fourth, says (a): “If a feoffment be made upon such condition, that if the feoffor pay to the feoffee at a certain day £40 of money, then the feoffor may re-enter: if he doth not pay, then the land which

(a) Litt. Ten. s. 332.

is in pledge upon condition for the payment of the money is taken away from him for ever, and so dead to him upon condition."

In time, however, the Court of Chancery began to Origin of an consider this condition merely as a penalty imposed demption. Equity of Rein order to secure punctual payment of the debt due from the mortgagor, and gave him, therefore, a right (subject to conditions to be presently noticed) to recover his estate, long after the time when a court of law looked upon it as the absolute property of the mortgagee. This right, from the fact of its being enforcible only in equity, came to be known as the mortgagor's Equity of Redemption, and is now inseparable from every mortgage. And since the time. when the Judicature Acts came into operation a mortgagor's equity of redemption has been recognised by every branch of the Supreme Court; but by the Judicature Act, 1873 (b), actions for the redemption and foreclosure of mortgages (which we shall consider hereafter) are assigned to the Chancery Division. It may be here mentioned that one result of the abovementioned doctrine of equity is that (the former reasons for having two deeds no longer existing) the absolute conveyance of the estate to the mortgagee and a clause corresponding to the old deed of defeasance are now contained in the same instrument.

Equity of Re

It follows, from what has been said above, that an Creation of an equity of redemption arises by operation of equity, demption. without any act of parties. We will proceed to notice the principal points relating to it, premising that we shall treat only of that equity which arises in consequence of the pledge of one, or other, of those estates in land which have been considered in previous chapters of this work. At first, also, we will deal only with a mortgage of the legal interest in such property.

(b) 36 & 37 Vict. c. 66, s. 33.