§ 76. Same: (continued). By the law of France, which the court found was the matrimonial domicile of the pair, a wife acquired an equal interest with her husband in all the property he had at the time of the marriage. She laid claim to one-half the personal property in the possession of the executors, which was the same property her husband had when they were married. The court held the wife was entitled to have an equal part of the property in the hands of the executors, and, in stating that the law of the matrimonial domicile determined her rights and not the law of the place where the property was situated, it said: "Mr. Wharton says that the place of the celebration is not necessarily the place of performance of the marriage, which, he says, the later jurists have agreed is its true legal site, and that this place of per formance is the matrimonial domicile to which the husband and wife propose to repair. On the marriage, the legal presumption is that the wife takes the domicile of her husband, and her rights are subject to the law of his domicile; but that presumption is overcome, and the legal inference is superseded, when, on the marriage, the parties adopt a place for their matrimonial domicile in which event the matrimonial domicile will control, and will regulate the property rights of the parties in movables. The authorities are quite generally in accord in selecting the matrimonial domicile as the place which shall furnish the law regulating the interests of husband and wife in the movable property of either, which was in esse when the marriage took place." The law of the matrimonial domicile controls also as against

§ 77. Same: Property acquired after marriage. One of the leading cases on this branch of the law, defining what nation shall supply the law for determining what the interests of husband and wife are in property acquired during coverture, is Saul v. His Creditors (2). In that case Saul and his wife were married and lived in Virginia, taking up their matrimonial domicile there. After about twenty years they moved to Louisiana. Whether they took any property with them from Virginia is not disclosed. While living and having their domicile in Louisiana, a large quantity of property was acquired by them. Thereafter the wife died and later still the husband became insolvent. By the law of Virginia, where the matrimonial domicile was taken up, the husband became the owner of all gains made during marriage. By the Louisiana law, the domicile of choice, the gains were divided equally between husband and wife. Each was entitled to a share to be held independent of the other. Saul became insolvent. The children claimed one-half the property held by him, in the right of their mother, from the insolvent estate. The contention made against this claim was, that, as the marriage took place in Virginia, by whose laws no community of gains was permitted, the whole of the property acquired in Louisiana belonged to the husband and thus, in the end, to the insolvent estate for the benefit of the creditors. The court held that the wife had a share in the Louisiana gains and that the Louisiana law, the law of the domicile of choice, should control the marital rights in those gains, and not the law of their

former domicile under which she would have had no interest whatever.

§ 78. Real estate governed by law of situs. As to the real estate held by either spouse, the rule is that the law of the place where the land is situated controls, entirely irrespective of the matrimonial domicile or the place where the marriage was celebrated. This is true both as to property held by either at the time of the marriage, and that subsequently acquired by either, whether by gift or otherwise. Thus, if by the law of the matrimonial domicile the husband acquires no interest in the wife's land, held by her at the time of marriage or acquired subsequently, but, by the law of the foreign state where the land is situated, he is entitled to one-half of it in fee, he would take, in either case, a half interest in fee in his wife's land. As a general rule the law of the state where the land is situated supplies the rule for the determination of the respective marital rights of the spouses therein.

§ 79. Effect of change of domicile upon marital property rights: Personalty. In Louisiana, the community property interests give to the husband one-half the personal property of which the wife is the owner at the time of the marriage. If the wife, in Louisiana where the married pair took up a matrimonial domicile, owned $50,000 in stocks and bonds, the husband would become the owner in his own right of $25,000. If they should subsequently acquire a domicile of choice in a nation where the husband took all the wife's personal property upon marriage, the change of domicile to such a nation would not affect the interest of the wife in the $25,000 still remaining her own

$50,000 had become the husband's or had remained entirely the separate property of the wife, by the law of the matrimonial domicile, the ownership would remain the same, although a different rule might be applied in their succeeding domicile of choice. As a general rule, therefore, when personal property belonging to the wife becomes the husband's, by the law of their domicile, a subsequent change of domicile will not alter the existing rights of the husband. And, on the other hand, where personal property belonging to the wife remains her separate estate, removal into another state does not affect her rights (3). However, as to acquisitions and earnings of the pair made in the new domicile, the respective rights are governed entirely by the law of that domicile.

§ 80. Same: Realty. The rule with reference to land owned by either, whether owned before the marriage or acquired afterwards, is not affected in any way by a change of domicile of the married pair. The laws of the domicile have no influence upon their respective rights in each other's realty, but they are governed entirely by the law of the nation in which the same is situated. Thus, if by the law of the state where the spouses are domiciled, the husband is entitled to the rents and profits of the wife's land, but, by the law of the state where the land is situated, she is entitled to the rents as her individual and separate property, the law of the state where the land is situated controls.

§ 81. Summary. From this chapter it appears that the law, for settling between husband and wife their re

spective rights in the property each had at the time of the marriage, is supplied by the matrimonial domicile, if the property involved was personalty. If they change their domicile and acquire property, the law of the new domicile is applied to fix their rights in this newly acquired property, but it does not in any way change the interests they have acquired under the law of their prior domicile. The law of the place where the immovables each owns are situated, fixes their rights in those properties.