Relations, MAINTENANCE OF.

Relations, MAINTENANCE OF. According to English law, a husband is bound to maintain his wife; if he refuses or neglects to do so, or makes it impossible for her to live with him, she has an 'authority of necessity' to pledge his credit for the necessities of life. Under the statutes relating to the poor a husband may be punished for deserting his wife, and compelled to provide for her maintenance; the husband of a lunatic wife may be compelled to contribute to her maintenance in an asylum. Under the Married Women's Property Act, 1882, a woman who has property may be compelled to contribute to the maintenance of her husband. At the common law a parent is not legally bound to maintain a child; but he may be indicted for not supplying an infant child with necessities. In like manner a child is not bound at common law to maintain his parents. But the poor-law of 1603 imposes a direct liability on the father, grandfather, mother, grandmother, or children of any person not able to work; and by a subsequent act a man who marries a woman having children (legitimate or illegitimate) must maintain such children. Bastard children are to be maintained by the mother; but the father may be summoned before justices and ordered to pay a weekly sum to the mother, or to a person appointed by the justices. A grandchild is not liable to maintain a grandparent, nor can a man be required to maintain persons related to him only by affinity (as e.g. a son's wife), or a collateral relation (as e.g. a brother or nephew). In Scotland the father, and failing him the mother, is bound to maintain children until they are old enough to earn a livelihood; a father refusing to provide for his child is punishable by fine or imprisonment. Parents have a claim on their children, and a husband is bound to maintain the indigent parents of his wife during the subsistence of the marriage. The father of an illegitimate child is bound to support it, and if the child is unable to earn a livelihood the obligation may last throughout its life. A husband is, of course, bound to support his wife; if he refuses to do so she may sue for aliment, and he is liable to her creditors for alimentary debts. In the United States the laws of the states vary; but the duty to support wife, children, and parents is generally recognised, and it is usually made a penal offence to abandon wife or children.