1294

LAWS OF MARYLAND.

CHAP. 768

CHAPTER 768.

AN ACT to provide for restraining married women from
pledging the credit of their husbands and to prohibit
tradesmen and others from making claims or maintaining
actions against husbands upon purchases and contracts
made by their wives, and to provide a penalty for making
such claims and instituting or prosecuting such actions in
instances where such married women are being reasonably
supplied by their husbands with necessaries or the means,
to purchase them.

WHEREAS, Many married men who are in the habit of
supplying their wives with all reasonable necessaries, or

Preamble.

adequate funds to purchase the same, are nevertheless, in
consequence of the extravagance of their wives, subjected to
annoyance, mortification and losses by actions and claims-
against them by tradesmen and others, which they are com-
pelled to submit to in order to avoid public exposure of their
private affairs; now, therefore, to provide a means for reme-
dying said abuses,

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Mary-
land, That any married man who shall think that the pledg-

Apply to any
court of
equity for
protection.

ing of his credit by his wife for necessaries is being abused,
may apply by petition to any court of equity in the city of
Baltimore, or in the county in which he resides, setting forth
the facts upon which he relies, and praying that an order may
be passed prohibiting his wife from pledging his credit.
And thereupon a summons shall be issued for his wife,
requiring her to answer the petition within such time
as the court may fix; and if, upon the service of said
summons and the expiration of said time and proof
taken, the ,court shall be satisfied that the petitioner is
supplying his wife with all necessaries to which she is
entitled, or with funds reasonably sufficient to purchase
them, having regard to her station and the means of the
petitioner, and that the pledging of the petitioner's credit is
being abused by his wife, the said Court shall pass an order
as prayed in said petition, and notice of the passage of said
order given by the petitioner in writing to any tradesman or
other person shall be sufficient to prevent such tradesman or