For injury or death of minor child.
A father, or in case of his death, or imprisonment, or desertion of his family, the mother may prosecute as plaintiff, an action for the expenses and actual loss of service resulting from the injury or death of a minor child. [§3761.]
Married women
A married woman may, in all cases, sue and be sued without joining her husband with her, to the same extent as if she were unmarried, and an attachment or judgment in such action shall be enforced by or against her as if she were a single woman. [§3667.]
Defense.
If husband or wife are sued together, the wife may defend for her own right; and if either neglect to defend, the other may defend for that one also. [§3768.]
When husband or wife deserts family.
When a husband has deserted his family, the wife may prosecute or defend in his name any action which he might have prosecuted or defended, and shall have the same powers and rights therein as he might have had; and under like circumstances the same right shall apply to the husband upon the desertion of the wife. [§3769.]
Evidence. Husband and wife.
Neither the husband nor wife shall in any case, be a witness against the other, except in a criminal prosecution for a crime committed one against the other, or in a civil action or proceeding one against the other; but they may in all civil and criminal cases, be witness for each other. [§4891.] In prosecutions for adultery or bigamy the husband or wife, as the case may be, is a competent witness against the other.