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Article: Husband and Wife
- Article from:
- West's Encyclopedia of American Law
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 The Gale Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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HUSBAND AND WIFE
A man and woman who are legally married to one another and are thereby given by law specific rights and duties resulting from that relationship.
The U.S. legal concept of marriage is founded in English common law. Under common law, when a man and woman married, they became a single person in the eyes of the law
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that person being the husband. The duties and benefits afforded a married woman, as well as the restrictions on her freedom, reflected this view. Even today, although the Equal Protection Clause provides that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" (U.S. Const. amend. 14,
§
1), the U.S. Supreme ...