erty by will. It could answer no good purpose to recapitulate the several statutory provisions, in the different states, upon this subject. They are of easy access to all interested in them, and are subject to constant change, from year to year. The English rule of the ecclesiastical courts obtained in many of 'the states until a comparatively recent period.

3. The English text-writers lay down the rule, without hesitation or qualification, that the ratification of a will after the testator arrives at the age required to execute a valid will, although executed before that age, renders it a valid instrument. But it is very questionable how far a will executed, while the testator is under legal disability, can be regarded as a valid instrument, from the mere fact of its subsequent parol ratification by the testator, after the removal of such disability.

• Deane v. Littlefield, 1 Pick. 239. By statute, the right to dispose of estate, both real and personal, is now limited to persons of full age, in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, Kentucky, Florida, Virginia, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Michigan, and a considerable number of the other states probably, and the tendency is largely in that direction. In some of the states a distinction is made between personal and real estate. Thus in Rhode Island, Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, and North Carolina, the age for making wills of real estate is fixed at twenty-one, and for disposing of personalty, in that mode, at eighteen. And in Connecticut at twentyone for real estate, and seventeen for personalty. In some of the states a distinction is made between males and females, as to the age of testamentary capacity. In Vermont females reach their legal majority, for all purposes, at eighteen years of age; and in Maryland testamentary capacity is fixed at twenty-one in males and at eighteen in females. In Illinois the same limits are fixed as to real estate, and as to personal estate, both males and females may make testamentary dispositions at seventeen. And in New York all persons are required to have reached the age of twenty-one in order to dispose of real estate, but males at eighteen and females at sixteen may dispose of personalty, by will. 4 Kent, Comm. 506, 507; 1 Jarman, Perkins' ed. 29, 30. In Texas infants are not held competent to execute a valid will. Moore, v. Moore, 23 Texas, 637.

71. Wms. Ex'rs, 16; Swinb. pt. 2, sec. 2, pl. 7; 7 Bac. Ab. Wills, B. 300.

8

It would seem, upon principle, that republication, according to the requirements of the existing statutes, would be necessary. And what Swinburne says, "if after they have accomplished these years of fourteen or twelve, he or she do expressly approve the testament made in their minority, the same by this new will and declaration is made strong and effectual," evidently' has reference, exclusively, to the disposition of personalty, which was not required to be done with any particular formalities, until the late Act. We think it safe to lay down the rule, that where a will is required to be in writing and executed before witnesses, in order to its validity, and is thus executed before the testator arrives at the required age, it cannot be rendered valid, after the testator arrives at full age, except by republication with all the prescribed formalities.

4. There has been a good deal of discussion, first and last, in regard to the proper mode of computing time. In some of the early cases, and by the text-writers, a distinction is made between computing from a particular event, on a given day, and from the particular day. And this refinement has been carried so far, as to attempt to establish a distinction between a period, as a month, or year, to be computed from the date, or the day of the date of the instrument, as if in the one case the day were excluded, and in the other not.10 But we apprehend, at the present day, that all these refinements are laid aside, and that where a term of time is allowed for the accomplishment of any required duty, as a general thing, the full term is to be computed, exclusive of the day from which it is reckoned. Thus, if a period of accumulation is reckoned by years, it will be

Pt 2, sec. 2, pl. 8.

1 Vict. ch. 26.

Co. Litt. 466; Clayton's case, 5 Co. Repts. 1. See also, Dyer, 218; Bacon v. Waller, 3 Bulstr. 203; Osborne v. Rider, Cro. Jac. 135; Llewelyn v. Williams, id. 258; Hatter v. Ash, 1 Ld. Ray. 84.

completed upon the recurrence of the anniversary of the day from which it is computed."1

But there seems to be one remarkable exception. The early case cited by Lord Holt, Ch. J.,12 wherein his lordship said, "it has been adjudged, that if one be born on the first of February at eleven a clock at night, and the last day of January in the one and twentieth year, at one of the clock in the morning, he makes his will, and dies; yet such will is good, for he then was of age," seems to have maintained its ground, for nearly two centuries, without question. The rule is so laid down in Swinburne; 13 in Blackstone's Commentaries; 14 in Kent's Commentaries; 15 in Bingham on Infancy; 16 and by Mr. Justice Metcalf, in his valuable commentaries upon contracts.17 In addition to this great weight of authority, the same rule has been adopted by some of the American courts.18 To all this we may add, that the same rule is promulgated, in the latest English edition of Mr. Jarman's valuable treatise upon Wills.19

.

11 Gorst v. Lowndes, 11 Simons, 434. This was where a fund was directed by the testator to be accumulated for twenty-one years from his death, and it was held, the twenty-one years was to be reckoned exclusive of the day of the death. So too where the legatee is required to perform a condition within a prescribed period of the death of the testator, the day of the death is excluded. Lester v. Garland, 15 Ves. 248. And this is unquestionably the usual mode of computing the period for the performance of any duty. Sir William Grant names many such cases in his opinion in the case last cited, and many others will readily occur. Indeed, it would be difficult to find many where that rule is not now followed.

12 Fitzhugh v. Dennington, 6 Mod. 259; s. c. 1 Salk. 44.

13 Pt. 2, sec. 2, pl. 7.

14 Vol. 1, p. 463.

15 Vol. 2. p. 233.

16 Page 2.

20 Am. Jurist, 252.

18 State v. Clarke, 3 Harring. (Del.) 557; Hamlin v. Stevenson, 4 Dana, 597.

19 1 Jarman, Eng. ed. 1861, 39. See also, 8 Vin. Ab. Dev. G. pl. 20; Herbert v. Torball, 1 Sid. 162; 7 Bac. Ab. Wills, B. 300.

We are happy to say that this presents an array of unbroken authority, which will not be liable to be affected by any dissent from us. But we feel compelled to declare, that the rule thus established in computing the age of capacity, seems to us to form a very singular departure, both from all other legal modes of computing time, and equally from the commonly received notions upon the subject. We cannot comprehend why this reckoning should be carried back any further, in computing a period from one's birth, than in computing the same period from his death. But to carry it back two full days beyond the real date, as the computation of the age of majority, does seems scarcely less than a blunder; which, for the good sense of the thing, we should be glad to see set right. It has also been decided that one attains his twenty-fifth year at the end of his twenty-fourth year.20

SECTION III.

DISABILITY FROM COVERTURE.

1. Coverture is fast becoming no disability in regard to making wills.

2. By the Roman Civil Law married women labored under no such disability.

3. That privilege has never been conceded by the English law.

4. Married woman may execute will by consent of husband.

5. She may dispose of choses in action by will, without consent of the husband.

6. So she may dispose of chattels, held for her sole and separate use.

7. So also where her personalty is secured to her separate use.

8. The husband's consent must be to the very will and not generally. Is revokable.

9. Such consent will not apply to subsequently acquired property.

10. Married woman may convey equitable, but not legal title of her real estate.

11. Where the husband is civiliter mortuus the wife may make her will as a feme sole. 12. The law here, in this respect, is approaching the rule of the Civil Law.

13. In Massachusetts married woman may dispose of any estate by will, held by trustees for her sole use.

20 Grant v. Grant, 4 Y. & C. 256.

14. In many of the states testamentary power is expressly conferred upon married

women.

15. In New York it is expressly denied; constructions which obtain there.

16. General testamentary powers how construed in different states.

17. Married woman may execute valid will in performance of a power.

18. By virtue of an ante-nuptial power she may execute a devise in favor of the husband.

19. Husband's assent to will of wife may be either express or implied.

20. Married woman may dispose of real estate in Connecticut with consent of her husband.

§ 4 a. 1. COVERTURE, in many of the American states, still interposes a disability in regard to the execution of a will. But the tendency is now, and has been for many years, so strong in the direction of removing all the property disabilities attaching to married women, that we should scarcely feel justified in occupying much space in pointing out the character and extent of those testamentary disqualifications which have formerly obtained here, or in England.

2. It seems to be conceded, that by the Roman Civil Law, a married woman possessed the same testamentary capacity in all respects as a feme sole.1

3. But by the laws of England no such power has ever been conceded to that class of persons.2 But there are so many exceptions to the general disqualification on the ground of coverture, that it seems to be of no practical importance anywhere.

4. But by the English law the wife may make a valid will of personalty by the consent of her husband. But this is upon the condition that he survive her, and do not elect, after her death,

1 1 Wms. Ex'rs, 47; 2 Bl. Comm. 497.

'Married women are expressly excepted from the Statute of Wills, 34 & 35 Hen. 8, ch. 5, and it is provided in the present English statute, 1 Vict. ch. 26, sec. 8, that "no will made by any married woman shall be valid except such will as might have been made by a married woman before the passing of-this Act."