Book Description

[Hyde, Robert]. A Treatise of Feme Coverts: Or, the Lady's Law. Containing All the Laws and Statutes relating to Women, and Several Heads: I. Of Dissents of Lands to Females, Coparceners, etc. II. Of Consummation of Marriage, Stealing of Women, Rapes, Polygamy. III. Of the Laws of Procreation of Children, and therein of Bastards or Spurious Issue. IV. Of the Privileges of Feme Coverts, and their Power with Respect to their Husband, and all others. V. Of Husband and Wife, and in what Actions they are to Join. VI. Of Estates Tail, Jointures and Settlements, Real and Personal on Women. VII. Of what the Wife is entitled to of the Husband's, and Things Belonging to the Wife, the Husband Gains Possession of by Marriage. VIII. Of Private Contracts by the Wife, Alimony, Separate Maintenance, Divorces, Elopements, etc. To which are added, Judge Hide's very remarkable Argument in the Exchequer-Chamber, Term. Trin. 15 Car. 2 In the Case of Manby and Scot, whether and in what Cases the Husband is Bound by the Contract of his Wife: And Select Precedents of Conveyances in all Cases concerning Feme Coverts. [London]: E. and R. Nutt, and R. Gosling, 1732. [viii], 264, [16] pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 2002041292. ISBN 1-58477-286-7. Cloth. $125. * Reprint of the first edition of The Lady's Law which examines the doctrines of English Common Law relating to a "feme covert" or a woman whose legal status was covered by a male head of their household, either a father or husband. A "feme covert" was therefore a woman not yet married or already married, but not widowed. (The legal status of a widow was a different matter entirely.) Written from a perspective sympathetic to women, it deals with precedents of conveyances not covered in The Law of Baron and Femme, and as such can be seen as a companion volume. The work concludes with an account of Robert Hyde's argument in the case of Manby v. Scott in the Exquequer Chamber in 1663 in which he argued that a husband who is separated from his wife is not liable to a vendor for goods the wife purchased from the vendor. Commenting on the case in his diary, Samuel Pepys referred to Hyde's judgment as "most amusing." Diary of Samuel Pepys