State v. Herndon

TERRELL, J.:

Appellee was charged with the larceny of the separate property of his wife. A motion to quash the information was granted and the State appealed. Can a man steal from his wife? is the sole question presented. The fact that this question was more than one hundred years reaching our docket affords the old and respected order of Benedicts at least one morsel to crow over.

The motion to quash was granted on the theory that the common law fiction, the unity of husband and wife, was of force in this State. By that fiction the personality of the wife is merged into that of the husband and…