# Blandy v. Asher

> Supreme Court of Missouri · April 15, 1880 · 72 Mo. 27

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8006539

## Case

- **Full name:** Blandy v. Asher
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Missouri
- **Decided:** April 15, 1880
- **Citations:** 72 Mo. 27
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Hough
- **Judges:** Henry, Hough, Sherwood
- **Cited by:** 7 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8006539

## Opinion text

Hough, J.,
Dissenting. — In Illinois, and perhaps elsewhere, it is provided by statute that the court which grants a divorce shall dispose of the homestead estate according to the equities of the case. Acts of Ill. 1871-2, p. 478, § 6. No court in this State is invested with any such authority. Our homestead act provides for the wife, and continues in her, in the event she should become a widow? the right so acquired and held by her as wife. But it makes no provision whatever for women who have been divorced. Brown v. Brown, 68 Mo. 396 . It is said, however, in the opinion of the majority, that the statute makes no distinction between an “ abandoned wife” and a “divorced wife.” There is no such person known to the law as a “ divorced wife.” The phrase is a solecism. When a woman is divorced, she is no longer a wife, and cannot be the widow of the person from whom she is divorced. Dobson v. Butler, 17 Mo. 87 . Such a person, therefore, cannot claim the benefit of the provisions made by the homestead law for wives and widows.
The position is also impliedly assumed, that as the statute gave Mrs. Asher a right to a homestead, and also gave her a right to a divorce, the exercise of her statutory right to obtain a divorce could not divest her of her statutory right to a homestead. As well might it be said that as the statute gives the wife a right to a homestead, and a *37 right also to join her husband in conveying it away, the exercise of her statutory right to convey will not destroy her statutory right to the homestead; The consequence of the exercise of a statutory right must, of course, depend upon the nature and legal effect of the right exercised. A strange condition of things would ensue under the ruling of the majority, if Lewis Asher, having a right to the custody of his children, should marry again and claim the homestead. I am of the opinion that the right of Alice Asher to a homestead ceased when she ceased to be the wife of Louis Asher.
Henry, J. concurs.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8006539. Public record. Not legal advice.