Exercising legal personhood: wives in contractual litigation over moveable property in nineteenth-century New Zealand

Abstract

In October 1884, New Zealand followed legislative reform taking place across the common law world that addressed married women’s legal position by passing its version of the Married Women’s Property Act. The Acts, both in New Zealand and in other common law jurisdictions, recognised wives as autonomous legal subjects by mitigating the inhibiting doctrine of coverture that had restricted married women’s ability to own or control property, or act as legal persons. However, wives’ presence in contractual litigation involving moveable property in the colonial courts of New Zealand prior to the reforms shows that, despite coverture, wives enacted degrees of legal personhood through several intricate legal mechanisms. The Married Women’s Property Act 1884 had no significant impact on the economic activity of wives. Furthermore, women’s social, legal, and economic position in relation to moveable property remained as diverse and legally complicated as it did prior to the Act.