In re the Will of Tuller

Citations

• 79 Ill. 99

Syllabus

<p>1. Will—:power of married woman to make. Under the statute of 1845, a married woman had power to dispose of her separate estate, as distinguished from her property generally; and since the passage of the act of 1861, entitled “An act to protect married women in their separate property,” which makes all the property of a married woman her separate estate, she has power to dispose of all her property by will, the same as any other person.</p> <p>2. Same—of feme sole, not revoked by marriage. The reason why marriage revoked a will of úfeme sole at common law being, that a will is, in its nature, ambulatory, and a married woman having no power to make a will, her marriage would destroy its ambulatory character, does not exist since the passage of the act of 1861, making all her property her separate estate, which, by the act of 1845, she has power to dispose of by will; and the further reason given, that marriage of úfeme soZeis such an entire change in her condition and relations that it works a revocation of her will, equally fails, as, since the act of 1861, her marriage works no essential change in her condition and relations as respects her property. It therefore follows that, since the act of 1861, the will of úfeme sole is not revoked by marriage, the reason of the rule no longer existing, and in this respect her will stands on the same footing with the will of a man.</p> <p>3. Where a widow, who had three children, executed a will in 1869, and afterwards, and during the same year, married, and, in 1874, died, having made no other will, and having had no children by her last marriage, leaving her three children by her first marriage surviving her, it was held, that there was no revocation of her will by her marriage.</p> <p>4. Act of-l 872 in regard to revocation of wills by marriage. The enactment which went into force July 1st, 1872, that “a marriage shall he deemed a revocation of a prior will,” was prospective in effect, and had reference only to marriages