READER. If the contract has been made under the system of separation of property, and for paraphernalia, there is no need of putting the question; each one will manage his own.
But I am somewhat puzzled how to answer you in case of communion of goods, or in case the capital is embarked in a common business, carried on solely by one of the parties. The present law does not seem to me sufficiently to protect the interests of the wife in case of separation.
AUTHOR. Without entangling ourselves in a host of individual cases which modify or contradict each other, let us provide that in case of communion of goods, the administration of the property shall be taken from the spouse holding it if the petition for divorce be based on his bad management, his dissipated habits, or his condemnation to a penalty affecting his liberty or person; that in all other cases, he shall make an inventory of the property and the condition of the business; and a person shall be appointed from the family of the spouse excluded from the management to watch over the conduct of the spouse to whom it is entrusted, who shall be bound to pay alimony to the other until the divorce shall be decreed.
READER. And if there is no fortune?
AUTHOR. Until the spouses become strangers, they owe assistance to each other: the court should therefore require the spouse that earns the more to aid the other.
READER. How long a time should elapse between the admission of the petition and the judgment of divorce?
AUTHOR. A year, in order that the parties may have time for reflection.
READER. The divorce being granted, and the ex-partners restored to liberty, would you permit them to marry others?
AUTHOR. Most assuredly; else what signifies our arguments against separation?
READER. What! the adulterous and brutal spouse, he who has inflicted suffering on his partner, who has been wholly in the wrong, should enjoy like the other the privilege of marrying again? I confess that this shocks me.