ABSTRACT
A legal system attains the end of the legal order, or at any rate strives to do so, by recognizing certain of these interests, by defining the limits within which those interests shall be recognized and given effect through legal precepts developed and applied by the judicial process. This chapter explains how claims of the husband to the society and affection of the wife and to her services for the benefit of the household have ceased to be effectively secured either against outside interference with the relation or the wife's refusal to adhere to it. We must remember that an interest may be secured by a power without a legal right in the narrower sense. For example, the interest of a wife in being supported is secured, by a power to pledge the husband's credit for necessaries. Yet at common law she had no action against the husband.
