Married Women and the Law


Book Description

Explaining the curious legal doctrine of "coverture," William Blackstone famously declared that "by marriage, husband and wife are one person at law." This "covering" of a wife's legal identity by her husband meant that the greatest subordination of women to men developed within marriage. In England and its colonies, generations of judges, legislators, and husbands invoked coverture to limit married women's rights and property, but there was no monolithic concept of coverture and their justifications shifted to fit changing times: Were husband and wife lord and subject? Master and servant? Guardian and ward? Or one person at law? The essays in Married Women and the Law offer new insights into the legal effects of marriage for women from medieval to modern times. Focusing on the years prior to the passage of the Divorce Acts and Married Women's Property Acts in the late nineteenth century, contributors examine a variety of jurisdictions in the common law world, from civil courts to ecclesiastical and criminal courts. By bringing together studies of several common law jurisdictions over a span of centuries, they show how similar legal rules persisted and developed in different environments. This volume reveals not only legal changes and the women who creatively used or subverted coverture, but also astonishing continuities. Accessibly written and coherently presented, Married Women and the Law is an important look at the persistence of one of the longest lived ideas in British legal history. Contributors include Sara M. Butler (Loyola), Marisha Caswell (Queen’s), Mary Beth Combs (Fordham), Angela Fernandez (Toronto), Margaret Hunt (Amherst), Kim Kippen (Toronto), Natasha Korda (Wesleyan), Lindsay Moore (Boston), Barbara J. Todd (Toronto), and Danaya C. Wright (Florida).




Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe


Book Description

Fresh approaches to how premodern women were viewed in legal terms, demonstrating how this varied from country to country and across the centuries.




Married Women and Property Law in Victorian Ontario


Book Description

A meticulously researched and revisionist study of the nineteenth-century Ontario's Married Women's Property Acts. They were important landmarks in the legal emancipation of women.




Women and the Law of Property in Early America


Book Description

Women and the Law of Property in Early America




A Nationality of Her Own


Book Description

In 1907, the federal government declared that any American woman marrying a foreigner had to assume the nationality of her husband, and thereby denationalized thousands of American women. This highly original study follows the dramatic variations in women's nationality rights, citizenship law, and immigration policy in the United States during the late Progressive and interwar years, placing the history and impact of "derivative citizenship" within the broad context of the women's suffrage movement. Making impressive use of primary sources, and utilizing original documents from many leading women's reform organizations, government agencies, Congressional hearings, and federal litigation involving women's naturalization and expatriation, Candice Bredbenner provides a refreshing contemporary feminist perspective on key historical, political, and legal debates relating to citizenship, nationality, political empowerment, and their implications for women's legal status in the United States. This fascinating and well-constructed account contributes profoundly to an important but little-understood aspect of the women's rights movement in twentieth-century America. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1999.




Until They are Seven


Book Description

An absorbing account of the origins of women's rights to property and children in the UK. A true story which reads like a Victorian novel. 'In law a husband and wife are one: and that one is the husband': Blackstone This was the law until well into the nineteenth century. Until They Are Seven is based on research into the historical background to the modern problems of child custody and access. The result is an absorbing tale of the origins of women's rights to their children and their property in which John Wroath recounts the brave moves by Henrietta Greenhill and Caroline Norton which led to the Infant Custody Act 1839 and Matrimonial Causes Act 1857-the rest being history. The story is also fascinating for the insights it gives into the private lives of several famous people of the time who were involved in or around these events-included among them the prime minister Lord Melbourne, the poet and playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.




Married Women's Separate Property in England, 1660-1833


Book Description

A critical history of the laws governing married women's property in England. Analyzing the laws and the ideology underpinning them, Staves (English, Brandeis U.) shows that while the judges had some room to maneuver, they chose to act on (and act out) their own prejudices. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Minimizing Marriage


Book Description

This book addresses fundamental questions about marriage in moral and political philosophy. It examines promise, commitment, care, and contract to argue that marriage is not morally transformative. It argues that marriage discriminates against other forms of caring relationships and that, legally, restrictions on entry should be minimized.




Women and the Law in the Roman Empire


Book Description

This sourcebook fully exploits the rich legal material of the imperial period, explaining the rights women held under Roman law, the restrictions to which they were subject, and legal regulations on marriage, divorce and widowhood.




Women, Business and the Law 2020


Book Description

The World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law examines laws and regulations affecting women’s prospects as entrepreneurs and employees across 190 economies. Its goal is to inform policy discussions on how to remove legal restrictions on women and promote research on how to improve women’s economic inclusion.