Privileged marital communications (Subsection (a) of Supreme Court Rule 2:504 derived from this section)

Husband and wife shall be competent witnesses to testify for or against each other in all civil actions.

In any civil proceeding, a person has a privilege to refuse to disclose, and to prevent anyone else from disclosing, any confidential communication between his spouse and him during their marriage, regardless of whether he is married to that spouse at the time he objects to disclosure. This privilege may not be asserted in any proceeding in which the spouses are adverse parties, or in which either spouse is charged with a crime or tort against the person or property of the other or against the minor child of either spouse. For the purposes of this section, "confidential communication" means a communication made privately by a person to his spouse that is not intended for disclosure to any other person.

Code 1950, §§ 8-287, 8-289; 1977, c. 617; 2005, c. 809 .