decedent). This too promoted “trade and commerce.” See, e.g., Holzbeierlein v. Holzbeierlein,
91 F.2d 250, 253 (D.C. Cir. 1937) (“To hold that a wife has a vested interest in her husband’s
personal estate that he is unable to divest in his lifetime, would be disastrous to trade and
commerce.” (citing cases)). As summarized in Dunnett:
It is settled that the law imposes no restraint upon the husband in the
free and unlimited exercise of his right to alienate his personal
property at will, and his real estate also, except his wife’s homestead
right therein, even though in the exercise of this right he strips
himself of all means of supporting and maintaining his wife,
provided he does so bona fide, and with no design of defrauding her
of her just claims upon him and his estate, the intent in all such cases
being the true test of the validity of the transaction. If it be done
with a fraudulent intent as to the wife, the transaction is invalid, and
2
The term “coverture” means “[t]he condition of being a married woman.” Coverture,
Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014).
6
she may assail the same under the statute. The intended fraud works
the invalidity.
97 Vt. at 428, 123 A. at 631 (quotation and alteration omitted); see also O’Rourke’s Estate, 106
Vt. at 331, 175 A. at 25 (“The right of the wife to any part of the husband’s personal property is
inchoate as long as he lives, and may be defeated by him by sale or gift thereof made in good faith.
But at his decease, her inchoate right immediately becomes vested and complete.” (citation
omitted)).
¶ 13. In Thayer, the husband, “in expectation of soon dying,” conveyed his entire estate,
real and personal, to his son from a prior marriage in trust for the son and the husband’s other