ejus percipiat\ On the other hand, in Scotland (until fifty
years ago) the wife's share descended to her children, or failing
them, to her own folk^. Professor Maitland suggests that in
England the Churchmen would have considered that the wife's
share should be distributed, in spite of the claims of the living,
for the good of her soul. But, as he explains, at the beginning
of the thirteenth century the ecclesiastical courts assumed
control of the succession to movable things. The common law
thenceforth dealt with the rights and goods of man and wife
only so long as the marriage endured. Debarred from con-
sidering the state of affairs which might ensue upon the
dissolution of the marriage, common law had no hesitation in
confirming the husband in his absolute power over things
movable'.
Collective ownership of the chattels of man and wife was
thus not received into our common law. Yet the possibility of
its reception is sometimes indicated. At common law a wife
could not be indicted for stealing the goods of her husband*.
This rule of law is usually explained as founded upon the con-
ception that man and wife are not twain but one fleshy un
person en ley\ According to Bracton, vir et Vjxor sunt quasi
unica persona^ quia caro una et sanguis unus^. But this
metaphor did not induce the law to favour community of goods.
Bracton continues: — Res licet sit propria uxoris, vir tamen
ejus custos, cum sit caput muiieris; if our early lawyers had
any notion to explain the relation of the husband to the
property of the wife, it was probably this notion of guardian-
ship^ Other notions might have had influence. There was the



^ Cited in Stobbe, iv. p. 121. See
also 8. 304, p. 297.
