articles for family use when it appears that such articles were not a
necessity, if the wife has objected to the purchase and notified the
seller that she will not pay for the same. "Expenses of the family," are
not limited to necessary expenses, but whatever is kept or used in the
family is included in the term. A piano, an organ, a watch and other
jewelry, a cook stove and fixtures, have all been held to come within
the term "family expense," for which the property of the wife is liable.
But a reaping machine, though used by the husband in the business by
which he supports his family, is not a legitimate item of family
expense, nor can a plow be included therein. The expense of treatment of
a wife at a hospital for the insane, has been held not to be a family
expense. Money borrowed by the husband and used in the purchase of
articles which, if obtained on credit, would constitute items of family
expense, cannot itself form such an item of family expense, that the
wife may be held liable, unless the money was furnished at her request,
and the account assigned to the party furnishing the money. If a
merchant with whom the husband has no account is notified in writing,
not to sell goods to the wife and charge them to him, the merchant
cannot hold the husband responsible, unless it appears that the latter
fails to provide necessaries otherwise for his family. If the family is
supported in whole, or in part, by the wife, she cannot recover back the
money thus expended, from her husband or his estate, as the law places
such duty equally on both.

[Sidenote: Removal from homestead.]

Neither husband nor wife can remove the other, nor their children from
their homestead without his or her consent, and if he abandons her, she
is entitled to the custody of their minor children, unless the district
court, upon application for that purpose, shall, for good cause,