Also known as: vir et ux · vir et uxorem · husband and wife · coverture
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A Latin phrase denoting a husband and wife. The phrase identifies the married pair as a single legal unit in traditional common-law rules governing property conveyances, privileges, and certain criminal liabilities.
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Veronica Varela and her husband received a deed granting land to them and the issue of their marriage who enter a designated profession. The grant satisfied the requirement that the conveyance run to two persons who are or might become husband and wife together with a class of their issue. The couple therefore held the estate in the protected concurrent form recognized under the applicable rule.
Violet Vidal discussed a business plan with her husband in their bedroom with no third parties present. When the government later sought to compel the husband to disclose those statements, the court applied the presumption that communications between spouses are confidential. The husband therefore could not be forced to reveal the content of the private conversation.
Vanessa Vega and her husband took title under a deed conveying property to them as husband and wife together with a designated class of their issue. The language met the statutory condition that the conveyance run in favor of two persons who are husband and wife and the issue of such persons. The couple therefore acquired the protected concurrent estate authorized in the jurisdiction.
Valerie Voss and her husband signed a cryopreservation consent form that expressly described frozen embryos created through IVF as their personal property. When a later research agreement attempted to recharacterize the embryos, the court treated the original form as controlling because it reflected the couple's property rights. The spouses therefore retained authority to demand removal of the embryos.
Vera Vargas and her husband received medical advice concerning contraception from a licensed physician. State officials sought to enforce a statute criminalizing the provision of such advice to married couples. The court held that the statute violated the right of marital privacy protected within the penumbras of the Bill of Rights.
Veronica Villanueva lived with her son and grandson in a single-family home. City officials cited her under an ordinance that limited occupancy to narrowly defined nuclear-family units. The court ruled that the ordinance arbitrarily intruded on protected choices concerning family living arrangements rooted in the Nation's history and tradition.
Yes. At common law a husband and wife were treated as a single legal person. Because the law did not recognize them as two separate legal actors, they could not by themselves form the two distinct parties necessary to create a conspiracy.
No. A privilege against disclosure of communications between spouses and a defense of immunity based on the relationship of husband and wife may not be invoked in a proceeding under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act.
…(DOMA), 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…
…touch economic problems, business affairs, or social conditions. This law, however, operates directly on an intimate relation of husband and wife and their physician’s role in one aspect of that relation. The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a…
…defines “family” in a way that excludes some relatives from living together. Specifically, the ordinance permits only a husband and wife
…opinion. Syllabus The product-liability action that gave rise to this case was instituted in an Oklahoma state court by a husband and wife
…an accused was not permitted to testify in his own behalf because of his interest in the proceeding; second, the concept that husband and wife were one, and that since the woman had no recognized separate legal existence, the
Yes. Confidential communications between husband and wife are privileged and protected from compelled disclosure. A presumption of confidentiality applies, and the government bears the burden of overcoming that presumption.
The phrase identifies the precise parties required. A conveyance made in favor of two persons who are husband and wife and the issue or a designated class of the issue of such two persons satisfies the statutory condition for creating the protected concurrent estate.
No. The Fourteenth Amendment forbids state laws that use racial classifications to burden the fundamental right to marry or its incidents. Tenancy by the entirety is a distinctive marital property form resting on the legal unity of husband and wife, so denying it on racial grounds triggers strict scrutiny and fails.