Although cited in fewer than half a dozen other cases since it was decided in 1953, McGuire v. McGuire is discussed in well over one hundred law review articles and featured prominently in the overwhelming majority of family law casebooks published for the U.S. market.1 The proposition for which it is generally thought to stand is that a wife “could not enforce any claims against her spouse during the course of the ongoing marriage.”2 As this commentary will argue, however, to cite the opinion reprinted in the casebooks for this proposition is to misunderstand it.3