The old doctrine that a woman committing a crime in
the presence of her husband must be held to act under his coercion and therefore must be acquitted has been condemned as obsolete by the Committee of lawyers whom the Lord Chancellor directed to inquire into the matter. The recent case of Captain and Mrs. Peel, in-which this ancient plea was successfully made on behalf of the wife, excited much comment. The -Committee, over which Mr. Justice Avory presided, has arrived at the same conclusion as laymen did. The changes in the status of married women 'have undermined the old doctrine. Wives are no longer dependent on their husbands, in the eyes of the law. It is absurd to suppose that wives can always be coerced by their husbands into doing-wrong. in no countries Save England and America does the law countenance such a belief. The Committee would, therefore, abolish the plea of coercion as a defence for a wife who is her husband's accomplice in crime.
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