Minnesota Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

An English legal system, received through Wisconsin

Minnesota's law is English common law (judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature), and it arrived by a particular route. When Congress created Minnesota Territory in 1849, it provided that the laws in force in the Territory of Wisconsin should remain valid and operative in Minnesota until altered, modified, or repealed by the Minnesota legislature¹. The first territorial legislature compiled that inherited law into the Revised Statutes of 1851, following the arrangement of Wisconsin's own revision².

A Minnesota rule can often be traced back through Wisconsin to New York, and from there to England. Minnesota was a separate-property state throughout: each spouse owned his or her own property, and each spouse's estate descended on its own account.

Four sovereign powers have claimed the ground that became Minnesota — England, France, Spain, and the United States — but only England shaped its law. Title came to the United States by treaty, and the Dakota treaties of 1851 and the successive Ojibwe treaties opened most of the state to settlement, so title to nearly every Minnesota farm begins with a federal patent. The Constitution of 1857 established an elected probate court in every county³, so wills, administrations, guardianships, and court-ordered sales of a minor's land are county records from the beginning; deeds went to the register of deeds of the county where the land lay, and marriage licenses and returns to the clerk of the district court.

A common law rewritten by statute

Four dates carry most of the weight, and each one changes what to expect in the records: dower and curtesy — a surviving wife's or husband's right to use the other's land for life — were abolished in 1875 and replaced the next year by a share owned outright; the Torrens system of registered land title arrived in 1901; the Children's Code of 1917 built the juvenile court and rewrote the law of illegitimacy; and common-law marriage was abolished in 1941.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Twenty-one for men, eighteen for women

Minnesota set full legal age by sex, and kept the split for the whole period covered here. One sentence governs: males of the age of twenty-one years, and females of the age of eighteen years, were of full age for all purposes; before those ages they were minors⁴.

That phrase "for all purposes" is doing real work. It is the reason a Minnesota woman could make a will at 18, marry without her parents' consent at 18, and see her guardianship close at 18 — three years earlier than her brother. A guardian's final account for a daughter dates to her eighteenth birthday; for a son, to his twenty-first.

For the territorial years the split governed particular subjects rather than the whole of a person's capacity. The code of 1851 fixed 21 for a male and 18 for a female for marriage consent and for the length of an apprenticeship, and ran guardianship to 21 for every ward⁵. The general rule arrives with the codification: the revisers drafted the section new, and it takes effect with the General Statutes.

Full age became 18 for both sexes in 1973⁶, after this period.

A minor's capacity

A minor could own property outright. What the law restricted was the power to give it away. A conveyance had to be made by a grantor — the person making the deed — of lawful age, so a minor's land was ordinarily sold not by the child but by a guardian, under an order of the probate court.

Apprenticeship

A child under 14 could be bound as an apprentice or servant only until that age, and a minor above 14 could be bound — a boy to 21, a girl to 18 or to the time of her marriage within that age⁷. The father bound the child, or on his death or incompetency the mother, or the guardian; a child born outside marriage was bound by the mother⁸. An indenture therefore brackets a birth year at both ends, and it names the binding parent.

Marriage

Who was old enough

The territorial legislature settled the marrying ages in 1851: every male of the full age of 18 and every female of the full age of 15 was capable in law of contracting marriage, if otherwise competent⁹. The same words were carried into the General Statutes¹⁰.

An act of 1927 raised the woman's age and created the exception that goes with it. A female now had to have reached 16; but one of 15 could receive a license with the consent of her parents and of her guardian if she had one, and only where the judge of the juvenile court of her county approved her application after a careful inquiry into the facts and surrounding circumstances¹¹. A marriage by a girl of 15 between 1927 and 1949 therefore leaves a juvenile court approval alongside the license.

An act of 1937 put a floor under both sexes, amending the list of prohibited marriages so that no marriage was to be contracted between persons one or both of whom were under 15 years of age¹².

The ages changed once more in 1949, at the very end of this period. Full capacity to marry became 21 for a male and 18 for a female, matching the age of majority. Below those ages a male of 18 could receive a license with the consent of his parents, guardian, or the court, and a female of 16 on the same consent and the same juvenile court approval¹³.

A marriage in which one party was under the age of consent but otherwise competent was voidable — it stood unless a court was asked to undo it¹⁴. The 1937 act changed that at the bottom of the scale: a marriage where either party was under 15 became absolutely void, without any decree¹⁵. Above 15 an underage marriage stayed voidable, and in practice an ancestor's underage marriage was almost certainly valid.

Parental consent ran to full age

Consent was required of anyone under age who had not had a former wife or husband — and "under age" here meant legal age, not marrying age¹⁶. So a man needed his parents' consent until 21 and a woman until 18, whatever the minimum marrying age happened to be.

The consent had to be given in person before the clerk of the district court, or certified in writing under the parent's or guardian's hand and attested by two witnesses, one of whom appeared before the clerk and swore he had seen the parent sign¹⁷. That attested consent is filed with the license application, and it names a parent or guardian — sometimes the only such naming to be found.

How a marriage was made

A Minnesota marriage was made in three steps, and each left paper. The couple applied to the clerk of the district court for a license — from the county where the woman lived, or where the marriage was to take place if she lived out of the state. The ceremony followed before an authorized officiant, with at least two witnesses present besides him, the parties declaring that they took each other as husband and wife. The officiant then filed a certificate with the clerk who had issued the license, and a duplicate with the clerk of the county where the marriage took place, so a couple who married away from home is recorded twice. Because the license came from the woman's county, the record was made there even when the wedding happened elsewhere; the entry names both parties, their residence by county, the dates of application, license, and marriage, and the officiant, and gives ages only occasionally, on the parties' own statements.

No particular form of ceremony was required¹⁸. Ministers filed their credentials of ordination with a district court clerk before they could officiate, and the place of that filing was endorsed on every marriage certificate they issued¹⁹ — which is how the officiant of an ancestor's wedding is identified.

Two provisions matter more than they look. Quaker marriages were valid in their own form, with the clerk of the meeting filing the certificate; where the marriage did not take place in a meeting, the certificate was signed by the parties and at least six witnesses²⁰. And a marriage was not void merely because the person who performed it lacked authority, so long as the couple believed in good faith that they had been lawfully joined²¹.

Common-law marriage, and the date it ended

Until 1941 a Minnesota couple could marry themselves. A present agreement to be husband and wife, followed by cohabitation and by holding themselves out as married, made a marriage as good as any solemnized in a church.

That changed on a fixed date. A marriage had to be contracted in the presence of two witnesses and solemnized by someone authorized, or believed in good faith to be authorized, to do it; and marriages subsequent to 26 April 1941 not so contracted were null and void²². Marriages formed informally before that date kept their full validity, and the courts have said so²³.

This is the single most useful marriage rule in Minnesota research. A couple living together as husband and wife before 26 April 1941 may be lawfully married with no license and no certificate anywhere. Their children are legitimate, the widow takes her statutory share, and the absence of a marriage record proves nothing.

The restrictions on marriage

Through the nineteenth century the bar was narrow. No marriage could be contracted while either party had a husband or wife living, nor between parties nearer of kin than first cousins, reckoned by the rules of the civil law, whether of the half or the whole blood²⁴. First cousins could marry.

By 1913 the degree had tightened to second cousins, which put first cousins outside it²⁵. A first-cousin marriage celebrated in another state was thought likely to be recognized here even so²⁶. A party who had been divorced was barred from marrying again for six months²⁷.

The same list carried a health bar: no marriage was permitted where either party was epileptic, imbecile, feeble-minded, or insane²⁸. The 1937 act carried the whole list forward²⁹. Where a couple falls in one of these classes, or stands within the forbidden degrees, look for a marriage contracted in a neighboring state.

Marriage across racial lines

A couple of any race could marry in Minnesota under the ordinary law. The impediments to a Minnesota marriage were the ones set out above — an existing marriage, kinship, want of the age of consent, and from 1901 health — and they applied to all persons alike. The list of prohibited marriages in the territorial code of 1851 reaches bigamy and kinship and stops there³⁰, and no racial bar was added to it at any later revision³¹. Black, mixed-race, and Native couples married under that law, appear in the ordinary license and return books, and their children were legitimate on the ordinary footing.

Marriage by Dakota or Ojibwe custom was a separate matter, governed by tribal law and by federal Indian law rather than by the marriage chapter, and a couple married by tribal custom will not normally appear in the county clerk's books at all.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

Every free man could acquire, hold, and convey land in Minnesota, and from the territory's first statute book that included the foreign-born. Any alien could acquire and hold land by purchase, by devise (a gift of land by will), or by descent, and could convey, mortgage, and devise it, and if he died intestate — without leaving a will — it descended to his heirs — in every case exactly as if he had been a native citizen³². A companion section barred anyone from attacking an existing title on the ground of alienage³³.

Minnesota wanted settlers, and wrote its land law to get them. For research this means a foreign-born ancestor's deeds need no naturalization behind them: he could buy land the week he landed. His naturalization papers, where they survive, mark his path to the vote instead.

Free men of color held land on the same terms, bought and sold it, and appear in the deed books accordingly.

Which women could own land

A single woman or widow — a feme sole, "woman alone" — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could.

A married woman was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture — the common-law rule that a wife's legal identity merged into her husband's, so that he controlled her property and took its rents and profits.

Minnesota dismantled coverture in stages. An act of 1869 made all property a married woman owned, or brought to the marriage, her separate property notwithstanding the marriage — free of her husband's control and of liability for his debts, and including the avails of her own contracts and industry³⁴. The same act bound her by her contracts and made her answerable for her torts — the harms she caused others — but left one thing standing: no conveyance of her real estate was valid unless her husband joined in it, apart from mortgages given to secure the purchase price of the land itself, and leases of three years or less³⁵. An act of 1887 declared and protected her legal personal identity, and the courts held that even that did not let her convey her land independently of him³⁶. Only with the Revised Laws of 1905, as amended in 1907, could either spouse convey his or her own land by separate deed, subject to the other's statutory interest, with the homestead — the family dwelling and the land around it, which the law shielded from creditors — always excepted³⁷.

So a married woman's own land was conveyed by a deed carrying both signatures until 1905, and by her separate deed afterwards.

One provision is worth memorizing because it upsets an easy assumption: the minority of the wife did not invalidate any conveyance she executed³⁸. A signing wife may well have been under 18.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

Two entirely separate rules put a wife's name on a Minnesota deed, and they answer different questions.

The first is her share in his land. Before 1875 that share was dower — a widow's life estate in one-third of her husband's land, meaning the use of that third for her lifetime rather than ownership of it. Minnesota dower reached every parcel of which the husband was seized (held in ownership) at any time during the marriage³⁹, so a buyer needed the wife to release it, which she did by joining in the deed and acknowledging it — appearing before an officer to confirm that the signature was hers — or by joining in a later deed⁴⁰. Minnesota used ordinary acknowledgment for this; there was no separate private examination of the wife apart from her husband.

Dower and curtesy (the husband's answering life estate in his wife's land) were abolished in 1875, except where a death had already fixed the right⁴¹. The same act put something better in their place, and made it the same for both sexes: the survivor took a life estate in the homestead, free of the deceased's debts, and one undivided third in fee simple — owned outright — of all other lands of which the deceased died seized or possessed⁴².

Those last words mattered for a year. As the act of 1875 stood, the third reached only what the husband still held when he died, so a buyer took free of it and a wife's signature added nothing to his deed. The act of 1876 changed the words to all other lands of which the deceased was at any time during coverture seized or possessed⁴³, which reached back over every parcel held during the marriage — and put the wife's signature back on Minnesota deeds for good.

The second rule is the homestead, and it never bent. Where the owner was married, no mortgage of the homestead except for unpaid purchase money, and no sale or other alienation of it, was valid without the signatures of both husband and wife⁴⁴. The courts enforced this to the letter: a deed, a contract for deed, or a mortgage of the homestead lacking the wife's signature was void, not merely voidable⁴⁵.

So a Minnesota deed signed by a husband alone tells you the parcel was not the family homestead. A deed carrying both names, before 1905, tells you either that the land was the homestead or that the wife was releasing her one-third — and after 1905 it may tell you the land was hers.

A survivor who had wilfully and without just cause deserted the deceased, and lived apart for the year immediately before the death, took nothing in the lands⁴⁶. A recital of desertion in a probate file is worth reading closely.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase. Selling it went through the probate court: the guardian petitioned, gave bond, and sold under a court order. A single sale of a child's land therefore leaves a petition, a bond, an order, and a deed signed by someone other than the owner — and the petition usually names the whole sibling group.

Deeds and their witnesses

A Minnesota deed was good on the grantor's own signature. From the territorial code onward, a conveyance of land or of any interest in it was made by deed, signed and sealed by the person from whom the estate was to pass, being of lawful age, acknowledged before an authorized officer, and recorded in the county where the land lay — "without any other act or ceremony whatever"⁴⁷. No witness was required to make the deed valid.

Witnesses appear on Minnesota deeds all the same, because they gave the grantee — the person receiving the land — a second route to record. Where a grantor died, left the state, or resided outside it without having acknowledged his deed, the execution could be proved by any competent witness to it, before a court of record⁴⁸. Where the subscribing witnesses — those who had signed the deed — were themselves dead or out of the state, the deed could be proved by the handwriting of the grantor and of a subscribing witness⁴⁹. And a grantor living in the state who refused to acknowledge his deed could be summoned before a justice of the peace to hear the subscribing witness testify⁵⁰.

So there was no age for witnessing a deed, because no witness was needed to make one good. Where a subscribing witness was used to prove a deed, the test was competency — whether the person could perceive what happened and relate it — and in practice deed witnesses were adults, since a witness might have to appear in court years later.

A second way of holding title ran alongside this one from 1901. The Torrens act let an owner register title through a district court proceeding and take a certificate of title good against unregistered claims; it reached counties of more than seventy-five thousand inhabitants from 1 September 1901⁵¹, and all counties from 1909⁵². A registered parcel leaves the deed books, and its later conveyances are endorsed on the certificate held by the county registrar of titles.

Native land

Land held by Dakota and Ojibwe people passed under federal law, not state law. The Nelson Act of 1889 applied allotment to the Minnesota Ojibwe reservations, pressing removal to White Earth and opening "surplus" land to sale; Red Lake was never allotted. Allotments were held in trust or in restricted fee, so they generate federal allotment schedules, trust patents, and heirship files rather than county deeds.

Inheritance

Before 1875: dower, curtesy, and the children

For the territorial years and the first two decades of statehood, a widow took dower — a life interest in one-third of the land her husband had held at any time during the marriage — and a widower took curtesy, a life estate in his wife's land⁵³. Neither owned the land; ownership passed at once to the children, who took in equal shares. This is why an estate of this period so often shows a widow living on a farm the children already own.

From 1875: a share owned outright

The act of 1875 abolished dower and curtesy and gave the survivor, husband or wife alike, a life estate in the homestead free of the deceased's debts and one undivided third of the other lands in fee simple⁵⁴. The act of 1876 recast the whole statute of descent and extended that third to land held at any time during the marriage.

Land descended by that statute, and the residue of the personal estate — whatever was left after the debts and the allowances were paid — was distributed in the same proportion, to the same persons, and for the same purpose⁵⁵ — so Minnesota ran a single scheme where many states ran two. The same section applied its rules as well to a surviving husband as to a surviving wife⁵⁶, so a widower's share is found under the same rules as a widow's.

The surviving spouse's share

The residue — whatever the survivor's third and homestead did not take — descended in equal shares to the children and to the issue of any deceased child — that child's own descendants — by right of representation, meaning they divided between them the share their parent would have taken⁵⁷⁵⁸.

The Probate Code of 1935 carried the scheme forward and added a refinement that changes the arithmetic:

The real-property share reached all land of which the decedent was seized or possessed at any time while married to that spouse⁵⁹. Reconstructing a family from a Minnesota estate division turns on getting the one-third and the one-half right.

The widow's allowance, and taking against a will

On top of the share, the surviving spouse was allowed out of the personal estate the wearing apparel, and, as selected by the survivor, household furniture and goods to $500 and other personal property to $500; where there was no surviving spouse the minor children received it, and a maintenance allowance ran during administration⁶⁰. In the nineteenth-century form the widow took her own apparel and her husband's, furniture to $500, and other personal property to $300, and these allowances were made whether he died intestate or left a will⁶¹. Where the whole estate came to $300 or less, the probate court simply assigned all of it to the widow and children⁶². An estate small enough for that summary assignment, or one holding no real estate, left no administration file at all; and where a spouse survived, an estate was often left unsettled until she died or the land was sold, so a file may be opened years after the death.

The statutory share could not be swept away by a will. It came to the survivor free of any testamentary disposition to which the survivor had not consented in writing, or by electing to take under the will⁶³. So the probate file holds either a written consent, an election, or neither — and which of the three it is tells you what the widow ended up owning.

Minors, guardians, and the age of fourteen

A guardian was appointed whenever the judge of probate thought it necessary or convenient — a discretionary trigger rather than a fixed list — reaching minors in the county and minors living outside the state who owned property in it⁶⁴. In practice the occasion was almost always property: a child who inherited land or money needed someone bonded to hold it, and where a child inherited nothing, often no guardianship was opened.

The usual Minnesota guardianship is of the estate, not the person, and the parent is still alive. The guardian had the care and management of the estate, but the father, if living, and on his death the mother, kept the custody of the child's person and the care of his education⁶⁵. A guardianship opened while a parent lives is not evidence of an orphan; it is evidence that money reached the child from somewhere else. A father could also name the guardian in his will, with the same powers as a court-appointed one⁶⁶.

The guardian gave bond, returned an inventory, accounted on oath within a year and whenever the court directed afterwards, and at the end of the trust settled with the judge of probate — or with the ward himself, once the ward was of full age⁶⁷.

Three moments end a guardianship, and each dates something. The ward reaching full age — 21 for a boy, 18 for a girl⁶⁸ — brings the final settlement, which approximates a birth year and for a female ward frequently reveals a married surname. A female ward's marriage ends it outright⁶⁹, so a guardianship closing with no birthday to explain it is very often a wedding; from 1935 her marriage ended the guardianship of her person while the guardianship of her estate continued⁷⁰, so late files may close in two stages. And a female guardian's marriage extinguished her authority, so a change of guardian frequently dates a widowed mother's second marriage⁷¹.

At fourteen the ward chose. Below that age the judge of probate nominated and appointed; above it, the minor nominated his own guardian and the court appointed that person if it approved⁷². A guardianship file in which the child chooses is evidence the child had turned 14, which brackets a birth year.

Children born outside marriage

Minnesota's rule was generous by the standards of its neighbors, and it is worth stating exactly.

Every illegitimate child was an heir of his mother in all cases, and inherited her estate as though born in lawful wedlock. He was also an heir of the man who acknowledged himself in writing, signed in the presence of a competent witness, to be the father⁷³. What he could not do was claim, as representing either parent, any part of the estate of that parent's kindred — unless before his death his parents intermarried and had other children and the father then acknowledged or adopted him⁷⁴. The Probate Code of 1935 kept the written, witnessed acknowledgment as the route to inheritance from the father⁷⁵.

Alongside that, the subsequent marriage of the parents to each other legitimated the children outright, and the issue of marriages declared null in law were legitimate notwithstanding⁷⁶.

Three practical points follow. A written acknowledgment of paternity is a findable document and may be recorded. A marriage that postdates a child's birth may be the instrument that made the child an heir, so the marriage record is the one to look for. And where paternity was contested, it was settled in a bastardy proceeding against the putative father (the alleged father), whose file names him.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

The age to make a will was full age — 21 for a man, 18 for a woman. Every person of full age and sound mind, seized of lands in his own right, could devise them by will in writing⁷⁷; every person of full age and sound mind could bequeath his personal estate the same way⁷⁸. To bequeath is to give goods or money by will. A married woman could devise and dispose of any real or personal property held in her own right, and alter or revoke her will, exactly as if she were unmarried⁷⁹. The Probate Code of 1935 restated the capacity as belonging to every person of sound mind "not a minor"⁸⁰, which kept the same two ages.

A will had to be in writing and signed at the end by the testator (the person making the will), or by another in his presence and at his express direction, and attested and subscribed in his presence by two or more competent witnesses⁸¹. A witness competent when he signed stayed good even if he later became incompetent⁸².

A witness could be of any age, provided he was competent, and took nothing under the will. All beneficial devises, legacies, and gifts to a subscribing witness were void, unless there were two other competent subscribing witnesses⁸³. Where such a witness would have inherited had there been no will, so much of that share as did not exceed the gift was saved to him⁸⁴. So where a will carried only two witnesses and one of them was left something, that gift failed.

Minnesota wills are signed, witnessed, written documents. A nuncupative (spoken) will was valid only for a soldier in actual military service or a mariner at sea, and only as to personal property⁸⁵, and a holographic will — one written entirely in the testator's own hand, without witnesses — had no standing at all.

Serving as executor required full age. Letters testamentary — the court's written authority to act — issued to the executor named in the will if he was legally competent, accepted the trust, and gave bond⁸⁶. Where the named executor was under full age when the will was proved, authority to settle the estate under the will — administration with the will annexed — was granted during his minority to whoever would have been entitled had the deceased died without a will, and the minor could be admitted as joint executor on reaching full age, giving bond⁸⁷. A change of representative some years into an administration is often that coming-of-age, and it dates a birth.

Administration of an intestate estate went to the surviving spouse or next of kin, or a person they selected, if suitable and competent; then to the principal creditors⁸⁸. A woman's marriage did not extinguish her authority as executrix or administratrix⁸⁹, so a change of surname mid-administration is a wedding rather than a replacement.

Taxation

What was taxed

Two taxes fell on individuals through most of this period: the property tax, laid every year on real and personal estate, and the road poll tax, a labor obligation on working-age men. An inheritance tax on property passing at death ran in the twentieth century, and Minnesota added a state individual income tax in 1933.

The property tax had no age at all — a man was taxed because he owned something, at whatever age he owned it, so a minor holding inherited land appears on the roll in his own name. The road tax was the one keyed to age.

Who was taxed, and at what age

Every male inhabitant above 21 and under 50 was assessed not less than one nor more than four days' work on the roads each year⁹⁰. He could turn up and work, send an able-bodied substitute who worked ten hours a day, or commute the obligation for money⁹¹; refusing to do either brought a fine of two dollars a day⁹². The overseer of highways gave the town clerk a list of the inhabitants of his road district, and the supervisors assessed the year's labor and road tax from it⁹³.

Exemptions

A man stopped being liable for the road tax in three ways:

• He turned 50. The road tax stopped, though he stays on the property rolls if he owned anything.
• He joined a fire company. A village council could vote to exempt a limited number of resident legal voters from highway tax and from serving on juries, where they belonged to a fire company organized under the council's direction⁹⁴.
• He was a disabled veteran. Discharged volunteers of the war of 1861, honorably discharged on account of wounds, having lost a limb or being otherwise permanently disabled, were exempt from poll tax and from sitting as jurors⁹⁵.

A man dropping off the poll and jury lists in the same year while staying on the property roll is very often the last of these, and it points to a pension file.

Courts

Jury service

Jurors were drawn from the qualified electors of the county⁹⁶, so the qualification for jury service was the qualification to vote, and the working age was 21. There was no freeholder requirement: a Minnesota juror needed no land of his own. Grand and petit jurors were held to the same standard⁹⁷, and so were talesmen, the bystanders summoned on the spot to fill out a short panel.

The Constitution of 1857 admitted to the vote, and so to the jury list, every male of 21 and upwards in four classes: white citizens; white men of foreign birth who had declared their intention to become citizens; men of mixed white and Indian blood who had adopted the customs and habits of civilization; and men of Indian blood who had adopted the language, customs, and habits of civilization and had been examined and pronounced capable by a district court⁹⁸. A foreign-born ancestor therefore reached the jury list on his declaration of intention, years before his final naturalization, and a man qualifying under the fourth class left a district court examination file naming him.

The list of exempt occupations is long and useful — federal officers, judges of courts of record, state officers, sheriffs and deputies, coroners, constables, attorneys, ministers of the gospel, preceptors and teachers of incorporated academies, one teacher in each common school, practicing physicians and surgeons, one miller to each grist mill, one ferryman to each licensed ferry, telegraph operators, and members of organized fire companies⁹⁹. An ancestor's absence from jury lists may be his occupation talking.

Women and men of color on juries

Men of color became electors, and therefore jurors, in 1868, when Minnesota's voters approved the amendment striking the racial limit from the elector clause — two years before the Fifteenth Amendment.

Women became eligible in 1921. The statutes on the qualifications of jurors and on exemption from jury duty were amended to include women as well as men, and all sex qualification was removed¹⁰⁰; the same act rewrote the definition of a petit jury to read a body of twelve men or women, or both¹⁰¹. A Minnesota jury list from 1922 onward carries women's names.

The age of criminal responsibility

Minnesota fixed criminal capacity by statute¹⁰²:

• Under 7 — a child was incapable of committing a crime.
• 7 to 11 — presumed incapable, a presumption the State could remove by proving the child had sufficient capacity to understand the act and to know that it was wrong.
• 12 and over — responsible, like any adult.

Statute then moved the whole class of cases out of the criminal courts, in two steps. Minnesota's first juvenile court act, of 1905, applied only to children under 17¹⁰³. The Children's Code of 1917 consolidated and replaced it and raised the line to 18¹⁰⁴, and a judge or justice before whom a minor came had to inquire into his age and transfer the case forthwith. So after 1917 a Minnesota child under 18 ordinarily has a juvenile file rather than a criminal one — across most of the state kept by the judge of probate, in the same office as the estates¹⁰⁵ — and those records could be withheld from public inspection at the court's discretion, though they stood always open to the child they concerned¹⁰⁶. The criminal route stayed open for the gravest charges: a boy over 12 and under 16 convicted of murder in the third degree could still be sentenced to the state prison¹⁰⁷.

Witnesses

Minnesota swept away the old disqualifications in one sentence. All persons having the power and faculty to perceive, and to make known their perceptions to others, could be witnesses — parties and interested persons were not excluded, nor those convicted of crime, nor anyone on account of religious opinions or belief, though credibility could always be attacked¹⁰⁸. A person charged with a crime was a competent witness at his own request, and his refusal to testify created no presumption against him¹⁰⁹.

Two classes were excepted: persons of unsound mind or intoxicated at the time they were produced, and children under ten who appeared incapable of receiving just impressions of the facts, or of relating them truly¹¹⁰. So a child of any age could testify if the judge was satisfied he understood; under ten, the judge examined him first.

Spouses were the significant limit. A husband could not be examined for or against his wife without her consent, nor she for or against him without his, and neither could be examined as to communications made during the marriage — except in a proceeding by one against the other, or for a crime committed by one against the other¹¹¹.

Women and men of color as witnesses

Both could testify, on the same terms as anyone else. The competency statute reached every person able to perceive and to communicate, and the disqualifications it named were interest, criminal conviction, religious belief, unsound mind, and childhood — all of them abolished or reduced to questions of credibility, and none of them turning on race or sex¹¹². What limited a married woman's testimony was the spousal rule above, which bound husband and wife alike.

(Guide compiled by Jeniann Nielsen with AI assistance from Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemini Pro 3.1. Check primary sources as needed.)

Sources & Where to Verify

Every rule above is tagged with the law it rests on. The lists below show where to read those laws in full, and the reference works consulted, so anything here can be checked against the original sources.

Constitutions

• Minnesota Constitution of 1857. Art. VI (probate court in each county); art. VII, § 1 (the four classes of electors, including the district-court examination for persons of Indian blood). Printed in the front matter of Minnesota Statutes 1945. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1945/document/misc/Preface/ (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota Legislative Reference Library. Minnesota Constitution, with the text of amendments and their ratification dates. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/guides/guides?issue=constitution (accessed 27 July 2026).

Territorial and State Codes and Compilations

• The General Statutes of the State of Minnesota. Saint Paul: Frederick Driscoll, State Printer, 1865. The 1863 revision; the majority section is marked "New." in the revisers' margin. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1863/cite/59/pdf (accessed 27 July 2026).
• The General Statutes of the State of Minnesota. St. Paul: Davidson & Hall, State Printers, 1872. The 1866 revision, in the 1872 printing; the essential volume for dower, curtesy, and the pre-1876 estate. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1866/cite/48/pdf (accessed 27 July 2026).
• The General Statutes of the State of Minnesota, as Amended by Subsequent Legislation. Prepared by George B. Young. 4th ed. Saint Paul: West Publishing Company, 1883. The 1878 compilation with supplements to the 1883 session — the single most useful volume for this guide (deeds ch. 40, descent ch. 46, wills ch. 47, dower ch. 48, executors ch. 50, intestates ch. 51, guardians ch. 59, apprentices ch. 60, marriage ch. 61, married women ch. 69, homestead ch. 68, witnesses ch. 73, grand juries ch. 107). The first edition (Saint Paul: The West Publishing Company, 1879), scanned by Google Books, was read in full for this guide; the two carry the same base sections, the 1883 edition adding supplements to that session. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1878/ (accessed 27 July 2026).
• The General Statutes of the State of Minnesota. Compiled and edited by Henry B. Wenzell, assisted by Eugene P. Lane; annotated by Francis B. Tiffany and others. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1894. 2 vols. Married women, §§ 5531–5532, with the case annotations. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1894/cite/69/pdf (accessed 27 July 2026).
• General Statutes of Minnesota 1913. Compiled and edited by Francis B. Tiffany. St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1913. Marriage §§ 7089–7105; homestead conveyance § 3456, with the cases holding a one-signature homestead deed void. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1913/cite/70/pdf (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. "History of the Publication of Minnesota Statutory Law," in the Preface to Minnesota Statutes. A bibliographic essay giving the compiler, publisher, place, and year of every Minnesota compilation from 1849 forward, and the legislative effect of each — the source for the imprints used above where a digitized volume lacks its title page. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/2024/document/misc/Preface/ (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. Statutes Archive, 1849 to the present — every Minnesota compilation, chapter by chapter, as searchable images. The fastest route to any Minnesota rule in force in a given year. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/archive (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Mason's Minnesota Statutes 1927, with the 1940 Supplement (1927 to 1940). The text of the marriage sections as amended in 1937 (§ 8564, prohibited marriages). No imprint is given: the volume was consulted through the Revisor's archive rather than from a title page. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1940/cite/70/pdf (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota Statutes 1945. Edited by William B. Henderson, Revisor. Minneapolis: Syndicate Printing Co. for the State of Minnesota, [1946]. The code in force at the end of this period, with the derivation of each section printed beneath it: marriage ch. 517, conveyancing ch. 507, registration of land ch. 508, probate ch. 525, juries ch. 593, juvenile court ch. 260, crimes ch. 610. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1945/ (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota Statutes 1965. Consulted only for the text of § 517.02 as amended by Laws 1949, ch. 374, which falls at the end of this period. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1965/cite/517 (accessed 27 July 2026).
• The Public Statutes of the State of Minnesota (1849–1858). Compiled by Moses Sherburne and William Hollinshead, Commissioners. Published by State Authority. St. Paul: The Pioneer Printing Co., 1859. Guardians and wards, ch. 54; the volume carries no general majority section, and was never enacted by the legislature. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1858/cite/54/pdf (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Republication of Important General Laws of Wisconsin Now in Force in the Territory of Minnesota by Provision of the Organic Act. St. Paul: James M. Goodhue, 1850. The Wisconsin laws that governed Minnesota before the Revised Statutes of 1851, printed as chapters xlv to lxiii of the first volume of territorial session laws. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/archive (accessed 27 July 2026).
• The Revised Laws of Minnesota 1905. Edited and annotated by Mark B. Dunnell. St. Paul: Published by the State, 1906. Enacted 18 April 1905, to take effect 1 March 1906. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1905/ (accessed 27 July 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the Territory of Minnesota. Read in full for this guide (ch. 46 conveyances, ch. 65 marriage, ch. 67 guardians and wards, ch. 68 masters and apprentices). Saint Paul: James M. Goodhue, Territorial Printer, 1851. The foundation volume: conveyances ch. 50 (with the alien landholding rule at §§ 35–36), guardians, apprentices, and marriage. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1851/cite/50/pdf (accessed 27 July 2026).

Session Laws and Federal Acts

• Acts confirmed from the source notes printed in the compiled volumes themselves, rather than from the session-law volumes: Laws 1869, ch. 26, § 1 (the homestead signature), at General Statutes of 1878, ch. 68, § 2; Laws 1873, ch. 44 (a married woman as guardian), at General Statutes of 1878, ch. 59, § 5; Laws 1874, ch. 65, § 1 (marriage of an executrix), at General Statutes of 1878, ch. 50, § 9; Laws 1911, ch. 222, § 1 (prohibited marriages), at General Statutes of Minnesota 1913, § 7090; Laws 1931, ch. 401, § 1, and Laws 1939, ch. 243 (marriage licenses and parental consent), at Mason's § 8569; and Laws 1907, ch. 123, § 1 (separate deeds), in the history line printed under Minn. Stat. § 507.02 in successive editions.
• Every act cited in this guide has now been read in a volume. Where a compiled volume's own parenthetical proved unreliable — the reference at General Statutes of 1878, ch. 47, § 1, which two scans render as "1869, c. 67" and "1869, c. 61" — both candidates were read and ch. 61 is the act.
• "An Act to Establish the Territorial Government of Minnesota." 3 March 1849, effective 10 March 1849. Section 12 continues the laws of Wisconsin Territory in force. Printed in the front matter of Minnesota Statutes 1945. Digital images. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1945/document/misc/Preface/ (accessed 27 July 2026).
• General Laws of Minnesota, 1868, ch. 85 (disabled soldiers exempt from poll tax and jury service); 1869, ch. 61 (the act behind a married woman's power to make a will) and ch. 67 (read and found not to be that act); 1887, ch. 207 (legal personal identity of married women); 1927, ch. 166 (the female marrying age raised to 16, with a juvenile court route at 15); and 1935, ch. 72, the Minnesota Probate Code, approved 29 March 1935 and in force from 1 July 1935 (§ 28 allowances, § 29 descent of property, § 32 illegitimate as heir, § 34 requisites of a will, § 142 termination of guardianship, § 185 definition of a minor). Each read in the session volume. General Laws of Minnesota and Session Laws of the State of Minnesota, 1849 to the present. Every Minnesota session-law volume, chapter by chapter, as searchable images — the acts read for this guide are ch. 56 of 1869 (married women's property), ch. 40 of 1875 (dower and curtesy abolished), ch. 37 of 1876 (title to real property by descent), ch. 237 of 1901 (the Torrens land title act), chs. 285 and 305 of 1905 (juvenile court; registration of land), ch. 183 of 1909 (registration extended to all counties), ch. 397 of 1917 (the Children's Code), ch. 365 of 1921 (women on juries), ch. 407 of 1937 (minimum marrying age of 15 for both sexes, read in Mason's 1940 Supplement), ch. 459 of 1941 (common-law marriage abolished), ch. 374 of 1949 (marriage capacity raised to 21 male and 18 female), and ch. 725 of 1973 (majority at 18). Minnesota Revisor of Statutes. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/ (accessed 27 July 2026). The digitized nineteenth-century volumes open at a caption title rather than a title page, so no imprint is given for them above; the 1901 volume carries a full title page and is cited with its imprint.
• Nelson Act of 1889. 25 Stat. 642, approved 14 January 1889. Allotment of the Minnesota Ojibwe reservations. https://www.millelacsequalrightsfoundation.com/downloads/treaties/TheNelsonAct.pdf (accessed 27 July 2026).

Court Cases

• Althen v. Tarbox. 48 Minn. 18, 50 N.W. 1018 (1891). Cited as printed in the annotations to General Statutes of 1894, § 5532.
• Baker v. Baker. 222 Minn. 169, 23 N.W.2d 582 (1946).
• Barton v. Drake. 21 Minn. 299. Cited from the quotation of it in Marr v. Bradley, below; the year of decision has not been confirmed.
• Bozich v. First State Bank of Buhl. 150 Minn. 241, 184 N.W. 1021 (1921).
• Horseth v. Fuglesteen. 165 Minn. 38, 205 N.W. 607 (1925).
• Laikola v. Engineered Concrete. 277 N.W.2d 653 (Minn. 1979). https://law.justia.com/cases/minnesota/supreme-court/1979/48566-1.html (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Lennartz v. Montgomery. 138 Minn. 170, 164 N.W. 899 (1917).
• Lundstrum v. Mample. 205 Minn. 95, 285 N.W. 83 (1939).
• Marr v. Bradley. 239 Minn. 503, 59 N.W.2d 331 (1953). Decided after this period, and cited only for its restatement of the earlier homestead cases. https://law.justia.com/cases/minnesota/supreme-court/1953/36-032.html (accessed 27 July 2026).
• State v. Olson. 156 Minn. 181, 194 N.W. 942 (1923).
• Von Felden v. Von Felden. 212 Minn. 54, 2 N.W.2d 426 (1942).

Secondary and Reference Works

• Minnesota Historical Society. MNopedia. "African American Suffrage in Minnesota, 1868." https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/event/african-american-suffrage-minnesota-1868 (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota Historical Society Library. Ojibwe Family History research guide, land records — Nelson Act allotment registers, trust patents, and heirship files. https://libguides.mnhs.org/ojibwefh/land (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota Historical Society Library. Research guides to court and probate records, marriage records, and land records — used for what a document contains and where it was filed. https://libguides.mnhs.org/courtrecords/probate; https://libguides.mnhs.org/vital/marriage; https://libguides.mnhs.org/lrecords/ownership (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota Legislative Reference Library. "Legal Age in Minnesota," a dated walkthrough of every Minnesota age rule and the acts that changed it. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/guides/guides?issue=legalage (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota Legislative Reference Library. Minnesota Women's Legislative Timeline (Laws 1921, ch. 365, and the companion jury acts). https://www.lrl.mn.gov/womenstimeline/details?recid=3 (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Minnesota State Law Library. Research guides on marriage and on minors, linking the governing acts by date. https://mncourts.libguides.com/marriage; https://mncourts.libguides.com/minors (accessed 27 July 2026).
• United States Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America. Bulletin 157 series. The Minnesota report digests majority, married women's property, the statutory share, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, and jury service, with citations to the then-current code. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/legal-status-women-united-states-america-5430 (accessed 27 July 2026).
• Walling, Barbara, and Judge Lynn Driver. "100 Years of Juvenile Court in Minnesota." William Mitchell Law Review 32 (2006). https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&context=wmlr (accessed 27 July 2026).

Citations

1. "An Act to Establish the Territorial Government of Minnesota," 3 March 1849, § 12 (laws in force in the Territory of Wisconsin to be valid and operative in Minnesota until altered, modified, or repealed); printed in the front matter of Minnesota Statutes 1945 (Minneapolis: Syndicate Printing Co. for the State of Minnesota, [1946]); digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1945/document/misc/Preface/ : accessed 27 July 2026) ↩
2. The Revised Statutes of the Territory of Minnesota (Saint Paul: James M. Goodhue, Territorial Printer, 1851); digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1851/cite/50/pdf : accessed 27 July 2026). The Revisor's own historical note records that the compilers followed the arrangement of the Wisconsin revision ↩
3. Minn. Const. of 1857, art. VI, printed in the front matter of Minnesota Statutes 1945 ↩
4. The General Statutes of the State of Minnesota, as Amended by Subsequent Legislation, prepared by George B. Young, 4th ed. (Saint Paul: West Publishing Company, 1883), ch. 59, § 2, hereinafter General Statutes of 1878, the short title carried in the volume's own running head; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1878/cite/59/pdf : accessed 27 July 2026). The section first appears in The General Statutes of the State of Minnesota (Saint Paul: Frederick Driscoll, State Printer, 1865), ch. 59, § 2, where the revisers marked it "New." in the margin, digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1863/cite/59/pdf : accessed 27 July 2026); and runs unchanged through The General Statutes of the State of Minnesota (St. Paul: Davidson & Hall, State Printers, 1872), ch. 59, § 2, digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1866/cite/59/pdf : accessed 27 July 2026). No general majority section appears in The Public Statutes of the State of Minnesota (1849–1858), comp. Moses Sherburne and William Hollinshead, Commissioners (St. Paul: The Pioneer Printing Co., 1859), ch. 54, "Guardians and Wards" ↩
5. Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 65 (marriage), § 7, requiring consent where a party is "under the age of twenty-one years, if a male, or under the age of eighteen, if a female, and shall not have had a former wife or husband"; ch. 68 (masters and apprentices), § 1, under which a minor bound himself "if a male, until the age of twenty-one years, and if a female, until the age of eighteen years, or until her marriage within that age"; and ch. 67 (guardians and wards), § 7, giving the guardian custody and management "until such minor shall arrive at the age of twenty-one years," without distinction of sex ↩
6. Session Laws of the State of Minnesota, 1973, ch. 725, redefining "minor" as an individual under 18 and "adult" as one 18 or older, in Minn. Stat. § 645.451; approved 24 May 1973, effective 1 June 1973; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1973/0/Session+Law/Chapter/725/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026) ↩
7. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 60, § 1: "All children under the age of fourteen years may be bound as apprentices or servants until that age; and all minors above the age of fourteen years may be bound as apprentices or servants, males to the age of twenty-one years, and females to the age of eighteen years, or to the time of their marriage within that age" ↩
8. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 60, § 2: a child under 14 is bound "by their father, or, in case of his death or incompetency, by their mother, or by their legal guardian; and, if illegitimate, they may be bound by their mother; and if they have no parent competent to act, and no guardian," they may bind themselves ↩
9. Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 65 (marriage), § 2: every male who has attained the full age of eighteen years "and every female who shall have attained the full age of fifteen years, shall be capable in law of contracting marriage, if otherwise competent" ↩
10. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 2; the same words carried from the Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 65 (marriage), § 2, through the General Statutes of 1866, ch. 61, and The Revised Laws of Minnesota 1905, ed. Mark B. Dunnell (St. Paul: Published by the State, 1906); digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1905/ : accessed 27 July 2026), into General Statutes of Minnesota 1913, comp. and ed. Francis B. Tiffany (St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1913), § 7089; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1913/cite/70/pdf : accessed 27 July 2026), and Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 517.02 ↩
11. General Laws of Minnesota, 1927, ch. 166, "An act to amend Section 8563, General Statutes 1923, relating to marriages," § 1 (approved 13 April 1927), raising the female age to 16 and adding the proviso for a female of 15 with the consent of her parents and guardian and the approval of "the judge of the juvenile court of the county in which she resides" after "a careful inquiry into the facts and surrounding circumstances" ↩
12. Mason's Minnesota Statutes 1927, § 8564, as amended by Laws 1937, ch. 407, § 1 (approved 24 April 1937), printed in the 1940 Supplement to Mason's Minnesota Statutes 1927 (1927 to 1940); digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1940/cite/70/pdf : accessed 27 July 2026); carried to Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 517.03 ↩
13. Session Laws of Minnesota, 1949, ch. 374, § 1, amending Minn. Stat. § 517.02; the amended text is printed in Minnesota Statutes 1965, § 517.02; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1965/cite/517 : accessed 27 July 2026). The 1949 session-law volume has not been read; the act is cited from the amended section and its history line ↩
14. Von Felden v. Von Felden, 212 Minn. 54, 2 N.W.2d 426 (1942) ↩
15. Mason's Minnesota Statutes 1927, § 8580, "What marriages void," as amended by Laws 1937, ch. 407, § 2, printed in the 1940 Supplement; before that amendment the void list reached only consanguinity and a living husband or wife — General Statutes of 1913, § 7106 ↩
16. Lundstrum v. Mample, 205 Minn. 95, 285 N.W. 83 (1939); clarified by Laws 1939, ch. 243 ↩
17. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 8, and §§ 7 and 11 (the license from the clerk of the county where the female resides, or where the marriage is to take place if she is a non-resident; the certificate to the issuing clerk and a duplicate to the clerk of the county where the marriage was solemnized, as amended by Laws 1871, ch. 94, § 1); and see Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 65 (marriage), § 7. The same mechanics appear at General Statutes of 1913, § 7095, where the trigger is stated only as "under age"; Mason's § 8569, as amended by Laws 1931, ch. 401, § 1, and Laws 1939, ch. 243, spells it out as "under the age of twenty-one if a male and under the age of eighteen if a female" ↩
18. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 9 ↩
19. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 5 ↩
20. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 16 ↩
21. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 15 ↩
22. Session Laws of the State of Minnesota, 1941, ch. 459, § 1, headed "Common law marriages prohibited," amending Mason's Minnesota Statutes of 1927, § 8562; approved 26 April 1941; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1941/0/Session+Law/Chapter/459/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026); carried to Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 517.01 ↩
23. Baker v. Baker, 222 Minn. 169, 23 N.W.2d 582 (1946); and see Laikola v. Engineered Concrete, 277 N.W.2d 653 (Minn. 1979) ↩
24. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 3, "Persons prohibited from marrying," reading "nearer of kin than first cousins, computing by the rules of the civil law, whether the half or the whole blood." The section carries no health bar and no bar on remarriage after divorce. The rule runs back unchanged to Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 65 (marriage), § 3: "No marriage shall be contracted whilst either of the parties has a husband or wife living, nor between parties who are nearer of kin than first cousins, computing by the rules of the civil law, whether the half or the whole blood" ↩
25. General Statutes of 1913, § 7090, reading "nearer of kin than second cousins, whether of the half or whole blood, computed by the rules of the civil law," and carried at that degree into Mason's § 8564 as amended in 1937 and Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 517.03. The degree tightened, and the health bar and the six-month bar appear, between the 1878 and 1913 volumes; the compiler traces the section to Revised Laws of 1905, § 3554, as amended by Laws 1911, ch. 222, § 1, but which of the two carried the change has not been determined — read both ↩
26. Op. Atty. Gen. (133b-36), 7 September 1935, collected under Mason's § 8564 in the 1940 Supplement, advising that such a marriage "would probably be valid in Minnesota"; and see Op. Atty. Gen. (300j), 26 February 1935, that marriage between a woman and her mother's first cousin is forbidden. An opinion of the attorney general is not a decision; treat it as the best available reading rather than a settled rule ↩
27. Mason's § 8564 as amended 1937, above — no marriage "within six months after either has been divorced from a former spouse" ↩
28. General Statutes of 1913, § 7090; the bar is absent from General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 3, and entered with the Revised Laws of 1905 or the act of 1911, as above ↩
29. Mason's § 8564 as amended 1937, above; Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 517.03 ↩
30. Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 65 (marriage), § 3 ↩
31. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 3; General Statutes of 1913, § 7090; Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 517.03 ↩
32. Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 50, § 35 ↩
33. Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 50, § 36 ↩
34. General Laws of Minnesota, 1869, ch. 56, § 1, amending ch. 69 of the General Statutes, "Married Women"; the digitized nineteenth-century session-law volumes open at a caption title rather than a title page, so no imprint is given for them here; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1869/0/General+Laws/Chapter/56/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026); General Statutes of 1878, ch. 69, § 1; carried into The General Statutes of the State of Minnesota, comp. Henry B. Wenzell (St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1894), § 5531; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/1894/cite/69/pdf : accessed 27 July 2026) ↩
35. General Laws of 1869, ch. 56, § 2, as printed at General Statutes of 1878, ch. 69, § 2: "A married woman shall be bound by her contracts, and responsible for torts committed by her, and her property shall be liable for her debts and torts, to the same extent as if she were unmarried." Section 1 keeps as her separate property all property "owned by any married woman, or owned or held by any woman at the time of her marriage … notwithstanding such marriage" ↩
36. General Laws of Minnesota, 1887, ch. 207, "An act to declare and protect the legal, personal identity of married women," § 1 (approved 2 February 1887): a woman retains "the same legal existence and legal personality after marriage as before marriage," with the same right to sue in her own name alone for injury to her reputation, person, property, character, or any natural right, "Provided, this act shall not confer upon the wife a right to vote or hold office, except as is otherwise provided by law." Printed at General Statutes of 1894, § 5532, with the annotation to Althen v. Tarbox, 48 Minn. 18, 50 N.W. 1018 (1891) ↩
37. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 507.02; the rule descends from the Revised Laws of 1905, §§ 3335 and 3456, as amended by Laws 1907, ch. 123, § 1 ↩
38. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 507.02 ↩
39. General Statutes of 1866, ch. 48, § 1 ↩
40. General Statutes of 1866, ch. 48, § 13 ↩
41. The repeal is recorded in the compiled volume itself: General Statutes of 1878 heads its chapter 48, "Estates in Dower and by the Curtesy," with the note "(Repealed by 1875, c. 40, § 5, saving all vested rights. See ante, c. 46, § 3.)," and prints the chapter only for vested rights — including the rule that a wife barred her dower by joining in her husband's deed and acknowledging it, or by a later deed executed with him or by herself alone. General Laws of Minnesota, 1875, ch. 40, "An act to abolish estates in dower and by the curtesy and provide for estates of inheritance, or otherwise, in lieu thereof," § 1, excepting rights already fixed by a death before its passage; approved 9 March 1875; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1875/0/General+Laws/Chapter/40/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026) ↩
42. General Laws of 1875, ch. 40, §§ 2–3 ↩
43. General Laws of Minnesota, 1876, ch. 37, § 3, approved 2 March 1876; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1876/0/General+Laws/Chapter/37/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026); carried into General Statutes of 1878, ch. 46, § 3 ↩
44. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 68, § 2, headed "Mortgages and conveyances must be signed by wife — exception — mechanics' lien," and carrying the parenthetical "(As amended 1869, c. 26, § 1.)": a mortgage or other alienation of the homestead by the owner, if a married man, is not valid without the wife's signature, unless the mortgage secures the purchase money or some part of it; carried through the Revised Laws of 1905, § 3456, and General Statutes of 1913, § 3456, to Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 507.02 ↩
45. Barton v. Drake, 21 Minn. 299, 305, holding a contract to convey a homestead signed by the husband alone void, so that the buyer took by it no title to, estate in, or lien upon the homestead; Lennartz v. Montgomery, 138 Minn. 170, 164 N.W. 899 (1917); Horseth v. Fuglesteen, 165 Minn. 38, 205 N.W. 607 (1925); and, restating the line of cases, Marr v. Bradley, 239 Minn. 503, 509, 59 N.W.2d 331, 334 (1953) — such conveyances are "not merely voidable, but wholly void." A spouse who did sign could be estopped from attacking the deed: Bozich v. First State Bank of Buhl, 150 Minn. 241, 184 N.W. 1021 (1921) ↩
46. General Laws of 1875, ch. 40, § 4, as printed at General Statutes of 1878, ch. 46, § 4: a survivor who "wilfully and without just cause deserted and lived separate and apart from said deceased person for the space of one year immediately prior to such decease" takes no estate in the deceased's lands ↩
47. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 40, § 1; the "without any other act or ceremony whatever" formula is that of the Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 46 (alienation by deed, and the proof and recording of conveyances), § 1, which also requires the grantor to be of lawful age ↩
48. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 40, § 11: where a grantor "dies, departs from, or resides out of this state, not having acknowledged his deed, the execution thereof may be proved by any competent witness thereto, before any court of record in this state" ↩
49. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 40, § 12: where all the subscribing witnesses are dead or out of the state, the deed may be proved "by proving the handwriting of the grantor, and of any subscribing witness thereto" ↩
50. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 40, § 13 ↩
51. General Laws of the State of Minnesota (St. Paul: McGill-Warner Co., 1901), ch. 237, "An act concerning land titles in counties of this state having over seventy-five thousand (75,000) inhabitants," § 1 (scope) and § 98 (in force from and after 1 September 1901), approved 11 April 1901; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1901/0/General+Laws/Chapter/237/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026); re-enacted as Laws 1905, ch. 305, and carried to Minnesota Statutes 1945, ch. 508 ↩
52. General Laws of Minnesota, 1909, ch. 183, amending the title and §§ 1, 12, and 81 of Laws 1905, ch. 305, and Revised Laws of 1905, §§ 3370, 3381, and 3451, "so that the same shall apply to all counties"; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1909/0/General+Laws/Chapter/183/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026) ↩
53. General Statutes of 1866, ch. 48, § 1 (dower), and § 30 (curtesy) ↩
54. General Laws of 1875, ch. 40, §§ 1–3 ↩
55. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 51, § 1, subd. Sixth: "The residue, if any, of the personal estate, shall be distributed in the same proportion, and to the same persons, and for the same purpose, as prescribed for the descent and disposition of real estate." The section carries the parenthetical "(As amended 1876, c. 42, § 1.)" ↩
56. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 51, § 1, subd. Seventh: "All of the foregoing provisions shall apply as well to a surviving husband as to a surviving wife or widow" ↩
57. General Laws of 1876, ch. 37, §§ 2–3, as printed at General Statutes of 1878, ch. 46, §§ 2–3: the survivor holds the homestead "for the term of his or her natural life, free from all claims on account of the debts of the deceased," and holds "in fee-simple, or by such inferior tenure as the deceased was at any time during coverture seized or possessed thereof, one equal, undivided one-third of all other lands of which the deceased was at any time during coverture seized or possessed, free from any testamentary or other disposition thereof to which such survivor shall not have assented in writing" ↩
58. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 46, § 3, First: the residue descends "in equal shares to his children, and to the lawful issue of any deceased child, by right of representation"; "by right of representation" is defined at § 15 as the descendants of a deceased heir taking the share their parent would have taken if living ↩
59. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 525.16, subds. (1)–(4), from Laws 1935, ch. 72, § 29, "Descent of Property," read in the session volume: the surviving spouse takes one-third of the personal property and an undivided one-third of all real property "of which the decedent at any time during coverture was seized or possessed"; where a spouse and only one child or the issue of a deceased child survive, that share "shall be one-half instead of one-third"; and subject to those subsections the whole estate descends in equal shares to the surviving children and the issue of deceased children by right of representation, or, where no child or issue of a deceased child survives, wholly to the spouse. the rule descends from Laws 1876, ch. 37, § 3, through General Statutes of 1878, ch. 46, § 3 ↩
60. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 525.15, from Laws 1935, ch. 72, § 28, "Allowances to Spouse, Etc.," read in the session volume: the wearing apparel, and as selected by the survivor furniture and household goods not exceeding $500 in value and other personal property not exceeding $500 in value, with a maintenance allowance during administration ↩
61. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 51, § 1, subd. First: the widow takes all her own apparel and ornaments and all her husband's wearing apparel, household furniture of her own selection not exceeding $500 in value, and other personal property of her own selection not exceeding $300, "as well when the widow receives the provisions made for her in the will of her husband, as when he dies intestate." By subd. Second she and the children also take a reasonable maintenance allowance during the settlement ↩
62. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 51, § 1, subd. Fourth: where the inventory shows the whole estate at $300 or less, the court assigns all of it, after funeral charges and expenses of administration, to the widow or widow and children, or to children under ten if there is no widow ↩
63. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 525.16, subds. (1)–(2); and see General Statutes of 1878, ch. 46, § 3, to the same effect ↩
64. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 59, § 1 ↩
65. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 59, § 5 ↩
66. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 59, §§ 6–7 ↩
67. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 59, § 27, headed "Conditions of bond of guardian," carrying forward § 17 of the earlier numbering ↩
68. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 59, §§ 2 and 5 ↩
69. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 59, § 42 ↩
70. General Laws of Minnesota, 1935, ch. 72, § 142, "Termination," read in the session volume: the marriage of a female ward under guardianship as a minor, and not under a juvenile court guardianship, "shall terminate the guardianship of her person but not of her estate," and does not affect her capacity to join with her husband in instruments involving his interest in real estate ↩
71. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 59, § 41 ↩
72. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 59, §§ 3–4; the Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 67 (guardians and wards), § 2, is to the same effect: under 14 the judge of probate appoints, and "if he is above the age of fourteen years, he may nominate his own guardian, who if approved by the judge shall be appointed accordingly" ↩
73. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 46, § 5: a child is an heir of the man who "shall, in writing, signed in the presence of a competent witness, acknowledge himself to be the father," and "shall, in all cases, be considered as an heir of his mother"; by § 6, such a child dying intestate without issue leaves the estate to the mother, or to her heirs at law ↩
74. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 46, § 5: the child could not claim, as representing a parent, any part of the estate of that parent's kindred unless the parents intermarried and had other children and the father then acknowledged or adopted him, in which case all the children were treated as brothers and sisters ↩
75. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 525.172, from Laws 1935, ch. 72, § 32, "Illegitimate as Heir," read in the session volume: such a child inherits from the mother as if born in lawful wedlock, and from the man who "in writing and before a competent attesting witness shall have declared himself to be his father," but not from the kindred of either parent by right of representation ↩
76. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 61, § 17; carried from the Revised Statutes of 1851, ch. 65 (marriage), through the Revised Laws of 1905, into General Statutes of 1913, § 7105 ↩
77. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 47, § 1, confining the power to devise to a person "of full age and sound mind," full age being fixed at 21 and 18 by ch. 59, § 2 ↩
78. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 47, § 4 ↩
79. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 47, § 1: "any married woman may devise and dispose of any real or personal property held by her, or to which she is entitled in her own right, by her last will and testament in writing, and may alter or revoke the same, in like manner as if she was unmarried." The amending act is General Laws of Minnesota, 1869, ch. 61, "An Act to amend Section one, of Chapter forty-seven, of the General Statutes, relating to Wills" (approved 6 March 1869, in force 1 June 1869), which struck from the section "the whole of the proviso which comprises the last five lines of said section, as printed on page 356 of the general statutes." The compiled volume's parenthetical reads "c. 67" in one scan and "c. 61" in another; ch. 61 is the act, and Laws 1869, ch. 67 has been read and is an act on recording proof of publication of mortgage-sale notices ↩
80. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 525.18, from Laws 1935, ch. 72, § 34, "Requisites," read in the session volume: "Every person of sound mind, not a minor, may dispose of his estate … by his last will in writing," attested and subscribed in his presence by two or more competent witnesses; § 185 of the same act defines a minor as "a male person under the age of twenty-one years or a female person under the age of eighteen years," which fixes the will age at 21 and 18 ↩
81. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 47, § 5, requiring a will to be in writing, signed at the end by the testator or by another in his presence and at his express direction, and attested and subscribed in his presence by two or more competent witnesses; Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 525.18 ↩
82. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 525.181 ↩
83. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 47, § 7: a beneficial devise, legacy, or gift to a subscribing witness is wholly void "unless there are two other competent subscribing witnesses to the same" ↩
84. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 47, § 8 ↩
85. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 47, § 6, allowing a nuncupative will of personal estate only to a soldier in actual military service or a mariner at sea; Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 525.182 ↩
86. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 50, § 1 ↩
87. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 50, § 7, "Proceedings when executor is a minor": administration with the will annexed during the minority, to the person entitled had the deceased died intestate, the minor to be admitted as joint executor on reaching full age and giving bond ↩
88. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 51, § 3, granting administration first to "the widow, or next of kin, or both, as the judge of probate may think proper, or such person as the widow or next of kin may request to have appointed, if suitable and competent to discharge the trust," and on their default or unsuitability to one or more of the principal creditors; carried through Laws 1935, ch. 72, to Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 525.28, "Persons entitled," and § 525.25, appointing a named executor found suitable and competent ↩
89. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 50, § 9, "Marriage of executrix, etc.," carrying the parenthetical "(1874, c. 65, § 1.)": when an unmarried woman who is administratrix or executrix marries, "her marriage shall not extinguish her authority as such administratrix or executrix" ↩
90. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 13, § 9, "Persons and property liable": "Every male inhabitant being above twenty-one years and under the age of fifty, excepting paupers" is liable to the road tax ↩
91. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 13, § 18 ↩
92. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 13, § 19 ↩
93. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 13, §§ 3 and 8 ↩
94. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 10, powers of the village council, cl. Tenth, "Exemptions of firemen" ↩
95. General Laws of Minnesota, 1868, ch. 85, "An Act to exempt disabled soldiers from poll tax, and sitting as jurors," § 1 (approved 15 February 1868), reaching volunteers of the war of 1861, citizens of and residing in Minnesota, honorably discharged "on account of wounds received while on duty in said service, having lost a limb, or being otherwise permanently disabled"; printed at General Statutes of 1878, ch. 124, § 82 ↩
96. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 107, § 3, "Who liable to be drawn": "All persons who are qualified electors of this state are liable to be drawn as grand-jurors, except as hereinafter provided." By ch. 71, § 3, "the qualifications and disabilities of petit jurors shall be the same as those prescribed by law for grand-jurors," so one test governs both panels; and see Minnesota Statutes 1945, §§ 593.13–593.14 ↩
97. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 593.04; carried from the Revised Laws of 1905, § 4328 ↩
98. Minn. Const. of 1857, art. VII, § 1 ↩
99. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 107, § 4, "Who are exempt," as amended by Laws 1873, ch. 72, § 1: officers of the United States and judges of courts of record, state and county officers, attorneys, ministers, teachers, physicians, one miller to each grist-mill, one ferryman to each licensed ferry, telegraph operators, "all members of companies of firemen organized according to law, all persons of more than sixty years of age, all persons not of sound mind or discretion, persons subject to any bodily infirmity amounting to disability"; and anyone convicted of an infamous crime is disqualified ↩
100. Session Laws of the State of Minnesota, 1921, ch. 365, § 3, headed "All laws relating to jury service to apply to both women and men," approved 19 April 1921; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1921/0/Session+Law/Chapter/365/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026); carried to Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 593.02 ↩
101. Session Laws of 1921, ch. 365, § 1, amending General Statutes of 1913, § 7960, to define a petit jury as a body of twelve men or women, or both; Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 593.01 ↩
102. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 610.08, "Presumption of responsibility"; carried from the Revised Laws of 1905, § 4754, through General Statutes of 1913, § 8473 ↩
103. General Laws of Minnesota, 1905, ch. 285, § 1 ("This act shall apply only to children under the age of seventeen (17) years"), approved 19 April 1905; digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1905/0/General+Laws/Chapter/285/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026) ↩
104. Session Laws of the State of Minnesota, 1917, ch. 397, § 1 ("This act shall apply only to children under the age of eighteen years"); digital images, Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1917/0/Session+Law/Chapter/397/pdf/ : accessed 27 July 2026); carried to Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 260.02 ↩
105. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 260.06, "Probate court as juvenile court; record; appeal" ↩
106. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 260.24, "Privacy of hearings and records" ↩
107. Minnesota Statutes 1945, § 610.48, "Commitment of child to state training school upon conviction of crime," from Laws 1917, ch. 266, § 1; and see State v. Olson, 156 Minn. 181, 194 N.W. 942 (1923) ↩
108. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 73, § 7, "Who may be witnesses," as amended by Laws 1868, ch. 70: "All persons, except as hereinafter provided, having the power and faculty to perceive, and make known their perceptions to others, may be witnesses; neither parties nor other persons who have an interest in the event of an action are excluded, nor those who have been convicted of crime, nor persons on account of their religious opinions or belief." One exception the section reserves is § 8, barring a party or person interested in the event from giving evidence "of or concerning any conversation with, or admission of, a deceased or insane party or person, relative to any matter at issue between the parties," as amended by Laws 1877, ch. 40, § 1; § 8 ↩
109. The rule making an accused a competent witness at his own request is not in the evidence chapter and has not been located in the volume; read the criminal-procedure chapters of the General Statutes of 1878, and the session laws admitting the accused as a witness, before relying on this sentence ↩
110. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 73, § 9, "Who are not competent witnesses," reaching only those of unsound mind or intoxicated when produced, and "children under ten years of age, who appear incapable of receiving just impressions of the facts respecting which they are examined, or of relating them truly." The general rule at § 7 admits "all persons … having the power and faculty to perceive, and make known their perceptions to others," excluding neither interested parties, nor those convicted of crime, nor anyone on account of religious belief; by § 14 the court may examine an infant witness to ascertain capacity and whether the child understands the nature and obligations of an oath ↩
111. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 73, § 10, First: neither spouse could be examined for or against the other without consent, nor as to communications made during the marriage, "but this exception does not apply to a civil action or proceeding by one against the other, nor to a criminal action or proceeding for a crime committed by one against the other" ↩
112. General Statutes of 1878, ch. 73, §§ 8–9 ↩