The British colonies generally have adopted the principles of the English acts of 1882 and 1893.
_Law of Scotland._--The law of Scotland differs less from English law than the use of a very different terminology would lead us to suppose. The phrase _communio bonorum_ has been employed to express the interest which the spouses have in the _movable_ property of both, but its use has been severely censured as essentially inaccurate and misleading. It has been contended that there was no real community of goods, and no partnership or societas between the spouses. The wife's movable property, with certain exceptions, and subject to special agreements, became as absolutely the property of the husband as it did in English law. The notion of a _communio_ was, however, favoured by the peculiar rights of the wife and children on the dissolution of the marriage. Previous to the Intestate Movable Succession (Scotland) Act 1855 the law stood as follows. The fund formed by the movable property of both spouses may be dealt with by the husband as he pleases during life; it is increased by his acquisitions and diminished by his debts. The respective shares contributed by husband and wife return on the dissolution of the marriage to them or their representatives if the marriage be dissolved within a year and a day, and without a living child. Otherwise the division is into two or three shares, according as children are existing or not at the dissolution of the marriage. On the death of the husband, his children take one-third (called _legitim_), the widow takes one-third (_jus relictae_), and the remaining one-third (the _dead part_) goes according to his will or to his next of kin. If there be no children, the _jus relictae_ and the dead's part are each one-half. If the wife die before the husband, her representatives, whether children or not, are creditors for the value of her share. The statute above-mentioned, however, enacts that "where a wife shall predecease her husband, the next of kin, executors or other representatives of such wife, whether testate or intestate, shall have no right to any share of the goods in communion; nor shall any legacy or bequest or testamentary disposition thereof by such wife, affect or attach to the said goods or any portion thereof." It also abolishes the rule by which the shares revert if the marriage does not subsist for a year and a day. Several later acts apply to Scotland some of the principles of the English Married Women's Property Acts. These are the Married Women's Property (Scotland) Act 1877, which protects the earnings, &c., of wives, and limits the husband's liability for antenuptial debts of the wife, the Married Women's Policies of Assurance (Scotland) Act 1880, which enables a woman to contract for a policy of assurance for her separate use, and the Married Women's Property (Scotland) Act 1881, which abolished the _jus mariti_.