Also known as: et uxor · and wife
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A Latin abbreviation for et uxor meaning and wife. It identifies a married woman as a joint party or grantee alongside her husband in pleadings, deeds, and case captions.
Ewan Eckhart and his wife receive a deed granting land to them and their issue in a jurisdiction permitting joint tenancies for such family conveyances. The grant satisfies the statutory conditions because it runs to two persons who are or might become spouses together with a designated class of their issue. The couple and qualifying descendants therefore hold the estate as joint tenants with rights of survivorship.
Edward Everett and his wife discuss business plans in their bedroom with no third parties present. When the government later subpoenas the wife to disclose those conversations, the court applies the marital communications privilege. The presumption of confidentiality shifts the burden to the government to overcome it, protecting the content of the private exchanges made during the marriage.
Ella Emerson and her husband receive a conveyance of land in a jurisdiction that recognizes tenancy by the entirety for qualifying grants. The deed names the two spouses and their issue as the recipients. Because the grant satisfies the statutory prerequisites, the couple holds the estate as tenants by the entirety with the attendant protections of survivorship and immunity from unilateral partition.
Eric Espinoza and his wife sue a medical institution after separating to obtain possession of cryopreserved embryos created during their marriage. Their original consent form characterized the embryos as the couple's personal property subject to removal on demand. The court treats the embryos as property governed by the contract and enforces the progenitors' disposition rights under that agreement.
Eugene Ellsworth and his wife seek medical advice on contraception from a licensed physician. State law criminalizes providing such information to married couples. The court holds that the statute violates the right of marital privacy protected by the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, rendering the law unconstitutional as applied to the couple.
Estelle Griswold served as Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Dr. C. Lee Buxton served as the League's Medical Director and was a professor at Yale Medical School. Together they opened and operated a center in New Haven that was open from November 1 to November 10, 1961. At the center they gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free. The statutes involved were sections 53-32 and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). Section 53-32 made it a crime to use any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception. Section 54-196 punished accessories as principals. The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed the convictions. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut affirmed that judgment in State v. Griswold, 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. The appellants asserted standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married persons with whom they had a professional relationship. A criminal conviction for serving married couples removes doubts about case or controversy. The rights of husband and wife would be diluted unless considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.
View caseEmma Erickson, the niece of a testator's wife, sues to enforce a promise the testator made to his wife to provide for the niece in his will. The court recognizes that moral obligations arising from the marital relationship support enforcement of the covenant in favor of the intended beneficiary even though she was not a party to the original agreement.
Judge Beman and his wife were advanced in years. Mrs. Beman was about to die. She had a small estate consisting of a house and lot in Malone and little else. Judge Beman drew his wife’s will according to her instructions. It gave $1,000 to plaintiff, $500 to one sister, plaintiff’s mother, and $100 each to another sister and her son, the use of the house to her husband for life, remainder to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She named her husband as residuary legatee and executor. Plaintiff was her niece, thirty-four years old, in ill health, sometimes a member of the Beman household. When the will was read to Mrs. Beman she said that it was not as she wanted it; she wanted to leave the house to plaintiff. She had no other objection to the will, but her strength was waning and although the judge offered to write another will for her, she said she was afraid she would not hold out long enough to enable her to sign it. So the judge said if she would sign the will he would leave plaintiff enough in his will to make up the difference. He avouched the promise by his uplifted hand with all solemnity and his wife then executed the will. When he came to die it was found that his will made no provision for the plaintiff. This action was brought and plaintiff recovered judgment in the trial court on the theory that Beman had obtained property from his wife and induced her to execute the will in the form prepared by him by his promise to give plaintiff $6,000, the value of the house. The Appellate Division affirmed the judgment by a return to the general doctrine laid down in Lawrence v. Fox. The Court of Appeals of New York granted review and affirmed the judgment.
View caseThe abbreviation identifies a wife as a joint party or grantee with her husband. It appears in conveyances running to spouses and their issue and in captions listing both spouses as plaintiffs or defendants.
Supporting sources
The abbreviation itself does not create ownership form. When a deed uses language such as to A and B who are or might become husband and wife and their issue, the jurisdiction's rules determine whether joint tenancy or tenancy by the entirety arises.
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The privilege protects confidential spousal communications regardless of how the parties are captioned. The abbreviation simply signals that both spouses are involved. The privilege analysis turns on whether the statements were made privately during the marriage.
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…110 Stat. 2419, defining marriage for all federal-law purposes as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” 1 U.S.C. §7. The new and widespread discussion of the subject led other States to a different conclusion. In 2003, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held the State’s…