Definition
The right enjoyed by married persons in the movable goods belonging to them. In Scots law, communion of goods describes the legal regime under which a husband and wife share rights in one another's movable property by virtue of the marriage itself. The concept reflects a communal property principle: upon marriage, the spouses acquire reciprocal interests in movables, not merely contractual claims against each other.
The term is distinct from a full community property system in that it operated specifically on movables (personal property) rather than extending to heritable (real) property, which followed separate rules under Scots law.
Common Confusion
Communion of goods is sometimes loosely equated with community of property or community of goods, but the terms are not identical. Community of property is the broader concept used in civilian and mixed legal systems worldwide, encompassing both movable and immovable property. Communion of goods, as used in Scots law sources, is narrower — confined to movables and tied to the specific doctrinal structure of Scots marital property law. Researchers encountering either phrase in historical sources should note which jurisdiction and time period is at issue before treating them as synonyms.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is primarily a Scots law term of art and will appear almost exclusively in sources addressing Scottish marital property, whether in dedicated Scots law treatises, comparative law discussions, or entries in historical Anglo-American dictionaries that include Scots law vocabulary. Researchers using American or English legal dictionaries should treat every appearance of this term as a Scots law reference, not as a general common law concept — American common law did not recognize communion of goods as a doctrine.
The historical dictionary entries for this term are truncated in ways that can mislead. Both Black's editions run the communion of goods definition directly into the maxim communis error facit jus without a clear break, which has caused some readers to misread the maxim as part of the communion of goods entry. They are separate entries. Burrill is more careful in preserving context.
Researchers tracing the history of marital property regimes in Scotland will need to move beyond the dictionary definitions to Bell's Dictionary and Principles of the Law of Scotland, which is the primary authority cited by all three source dictionaries here. Bell's work provides the substantive framework that the dictionaries merely summarize.
For comparative purposes, communion of goods connects to civilian community property traditions derived from Roman and canon law, which informed Scots law distinctly from English common law. This lineage matters if the research concern is tracing how community property concepts entered American jurisdictions through Spanish and French civil law rather than through Scots law directly.
The term is unlikely to appear in post-20th-century Scots law sources in its classical form. The Married Women's Property Act 1881 and subsequent Scottish legislation substantially reformed marital property law, and modern Scots law no longer operates under a communion of goods framework in the traditional sense.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries give nearly identical one-sentence definitions, each attributing the definition to Bell. This convergence reflects the dictionaries' common reliance on a single primary source rather than independent synthesis, which limits their value beyond confirming the term's existence and basic meaning.
Burrill adds a useful caution: the related maxim communis error facit jus (common error makes law) should be received and applied with great caution when applied to common opinion. While this caution appears in Burrill's entry for a different term, it signals the broader scholarly unease with the maxims that followed communion of goods in the dictionary sequence — a reminder that the maxims appearing alongside this entry in Black's are legally contested, not settled propositions.
None of the three dictionaries explain the historical scope of movables covered, the mechanism by which the communion arose, or how it was extinguished — by death, divorce, or voluntary settlement. Researchers needing that level of detail must consult Bell directly.
Jurisdictional Note
Communion of goods is a term of Scots law and has no direct common law equivalent in England or the United States. It should not be cited as authority in American or English proceedings. Its relevance to American legal research is primarily comparative or historical — particularly in tracing the civil law roots of community property regimes adopted in Louisiana, Texas, California, and other states with Spanish or French legal heritage.