Page 77 - The Circle of Life

(it affects the joint estate). Once again where the matter involves the spouse's

business transactions in the normal course of his duties consent is not required.

So what happens when consent is refused?

You know some men are not exactly the alpha male type and though they tend

to be dominated by their wives it happens that a spouse (almost always the
man) refuses to give consent for the legal case as discussed above. This led to
the law allowing the refused spouse to apply directly to court for an order

dispensing consent. How this would affect the harmony of the marriage I don't

know but I imagine a few choice words will be exchanged.

Note that the court will only grant such a request if the other spouse is

unreasonable to withhold his consent or where it is necessary for the protection
of the joint estate that the order be granted. I assure you that you will need the

professionals to assist you with such a motion.

What if the spouse acts without consent?

I am sure you will understand how dangerous this is to the third party who in

good faith entered into a contract with the spouse just to hear later that he (or
she) did not obtained consent to do so beforehand. Under normal laws of

contracts this will lead to restitio as we discussed before where both parties are
placed in the position they were before the transaction since one of the

fundamental elements (formalities in law) was not abide to. Most certainly this

aspect was widely abused when thing went wrong (the law almost never get
involved when things are not going wrong) and this lack of consent used (read
abused) to declare the contract void.

As with companies, the law takes for granted that permission was obtained

unless the third party reasonably should have known that it was not obtained! It
is presumed it law that the spouse had consent and the contract will be

scrutinized to see what was signed in what capacity. With a woman it is logical
to deduct she is married, divorced or widowed if she signs as Mrs So and So and

the question should then be asked "how are you married" as most contracts do if
drafted by someone more competent than usual. If something goes wrong the

offending spouse will suffer the loss from his part of the joint estate.

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