Married Women's Property Acts Research Articles

Single Motherhood and the Abolition of Coverture in the United States

Under the common‐law system of coverture in the United States, a married woman relinquished control of property and wages to her husband. Many U.S. states passed acts between 1850 and 1920 that expanded a married woman's right to keep her market earnings and to own separate property. The former were called married women's earnings acts (MWEAs) and the latter married women's property acts (MWPAs). Scholarly interest in the acts’ effects is growing, with researchers examining how the acts affected outcomes such as women's wealth holding and educational attainment. The acts’ impact on women's nonmarital birth decisions remains unexamined, however. We postulate that the acts caused women to anticipate greater benefits from having children within rather than outside of marriage. We thus expect the passage of MWPAs and MWEAs to reduce the likelihood that single women become mothers of young children. We use probit regression to analyze individual data from the U.S. Census for the years 1860 to 1920. We find that the property acts in fact reduced the likelihood that single women have young children. We also find that the “de‐coverture” acts’ effects were stronger for literate women, for U.S.‐born women, in states with higher female labor‐force participation, and in more rural states, consistent with predictions.

The Narrowing of the Gender Wealth Gap across the Nineteenth-Century United States

Shammas (1994) documented the expansion of women's wealth holding across the nineteenth-century United States, explaining it as the result of the married women's property acts (MWPAs) passed in most of states starting circa 1840. We look at the timing of the expansion of women's wealth holding, drawing on archival and published evidence from probate records. Starting with Richmond, Virginia, and its agricultural hinterland, we consider a variety of places, urban and rural, in the South and North, to suggest a general view of the eastern United States. In rough outline, while colonial women were at most one-tenth of probated wealth holders, antebellum women were at least one-fifth. Levels of women's wealth holding increased even more. The substantial narrowing of the gender wealth gap cannot be attributed to the MWPAs that followed. Perhaps those acts will explain the further narrowing of the gender wealth gap in the later nineteenth century, but that narrowing might better be understood as a continuation of previous trends. Our results remind that some legal reforms can better be understood as reflections than causes of social change.

A Radical Demand Effect: Early US Feminists and the Married Women's Property Acts

Numerous scholars consider the economic origins of the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century US married women's property acts. Researchers investigate how economic downturns and women's inroads into business spurred lawmakers to reform property laws to give married women the right to own separate property. Such economic explanations, however, are only a partial story. Our investigation reveals the important role of women's collective activism in winning these legal changes. Women mobilized for property rights often as they pressed for voting rights and, in one case, as they campaigned for an equal rights amendment. We examine circumstances leading to passage of married women's property acts in seven states to show that as women mobilized for property rights alongside voting rights or a broader equal rights law, a radical demand effect unfolded. Lawmakers often considered demands for woman suffrage or an equal rights amendment as more far-reaching and thus more radical and threatening. Such feminist demands, then, provided a foil for property-rights activism, and the contrast led lawmakers to view property demands as more moderate. In addition, as they pressed for these combined reforms, women often engaged in hybrid framing that allowed them to moderate their demand for property reforms by linking their property goals to beliefs already widely accepted. The confluence of these circumstances led political leaders to deem property changes as more moderate and acceptable in an effort to steer feminists away from their radical goals. In the end, the radical demand effect created a political opportunity for passage of the married women's property acts.

The Three Waves of Married Women's Property Acts in the Nineteenth Century with a Focus on Mississippi, New York and Oregon

The Three Waves of Married Women's Property Acts in the Nineteenth Century with a Focus on Mississippi, New York and Oregon

‘The wife's administration of the earnings’? Working-class women and savings in the mid-nineteenth century

ABSTRACTA survey of working-class women's activity as savers offers a new insight into their economic activity, opening questions about the sources inside and outside the family of the money saved by single and married women. It is relevant to a number of issues: the economic activity of married women and its relationship to the legal context in which they were operating – in particular before the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882; the extent to which women's employment in the nineteenth century may have been mis-stated and/or under-reported; and the distribution of income within the working-class family. A study of investment patterns within two savings banks, one in Huddersfield and one in Sheffield in the mid-nineteenth century, suggests that working-class women may have been more active as savers than has been reported by earlier studies.

The New Woman, Portable Property and The Spoils of Poynton

This essay argues that The Spoils of Poynton (1897) can usefully be read in relation to the emergence of the New Woman and her demands for social equality, particularly her demand for equal property rights. James's novel treats the theme of female property ownership in terms of the new legal rights women possessed following the passing of the Married Women's Property Acts in 1870 and 1882. He also engages with the notion of gender inversion associated with the New Woman.

American women and the lingering implications of coverture

Because coverture restrictions prevented most married American women from the colonial period through a good part of the 19th century from acting as their own agents at law or to have independent property rights, attempts were made to modify this legal disability. Married Women Property Acts partially remedied some of these legal disabilities, but others lingered well into the 20th century because, unlike most contracts, the marriage contract in the United States still remains unwritten and so, its terms are not defined. Even with the advent of contractual marriages in the 1970s and 1980s, coverture overtones continue to exist. While some state courts have accepted these contractual arrangements, others have not and their enforcement remains problematic “because the law still prescribes sex-differentiated marital roles and male domination.”

CLASS, GENDER, AND LIBERALISM IN PARLIAMENT, 1868–1882: THE CASE OF THE MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY ACTS

The class and gender identities created by male politicians are vital to a proper understanding of how and why parliament increased women's legal rights in the nineteenth century. An examination of the parliamentary debates on the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882 reveals that it is misleading to divide men into supporters and opponents of women's rights, because even some of those who supported the most radical reform did so in the belief that the gender hierarchy should be left intact. At the same time, politicians were reluctant to accept that their own homes should be affected by changes to women's rights, both because they feared that these changes would reduce their domestic authority and create discord in their homes, and because they did not think that the critique of male behaviour which justified the reforms should apply to them or their class. Their ability to confine both charges of abuse and the effects of the acts to the poor was essential to the successful passage of the Married Women's Property Acts. Rather than see this as the defeat of a liberal individualist vision, it was in fact the victory of an alternative strand of Victorian liberalism.

Uniformity and Conformity: Regionalism and the Adjudication of the Married Women's Property Acts

Marriage law was determined by the states, but displays few of the regional differences marking other areas of law in early nineteenth-century America. While there were some regional variations in the statutory law defining married women's property rights, these were reduced as judges applied common law standards and techniques of interpretation to their application in particular cases. Judicial discretion and use of a common standard meant that there was considerable uniformity in this area of law across the nation. This study supports arguments that an accurate understanding of nineteenth-century America requires acknowledging the unevenness of sectional differences in various spheres of law and public life.

Re-Assessing the Married Women's Property Acts

Re-Assessing the Married Women's Property Acts

Lee Holcombe, Wives and Property: Reform of the Married Women's Property Acts in Nineteenth-Century England. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. 1983. Pp. 311. $35.00 cloth, $12.50 paper.

Lee Holcombe, Wives and Property: Reform of the Married Women's Property Acts in Nineteenth-Century England. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. 1983. Pp. 311. $35.00 cloth, $12.50 paper.

Late Nineteenth Century Married Women's Property Law: Reception of the Early Married Women's Property Acts by Courts and Legislatures

The reform of married women's property has been proceeding for more than a century.' Beginning around 1835, states began to alter the common law rules granting husbands management and control of their wives' real estate and ownership of their personal property. The initial wave of acts generally provided that married women's property was to be exempted from attachment by creditors of their husbands. Some of these acts also contained language permitting married women to own property in their own separate estates, although the statutory language gave almost no guidance as to the scope of management authority, if any, wives were to have over their assets. Frequently the statutes were construed narrowly. Subsequent legislation was necessary in all jurisdictions before the major tenets of common law coverture rules had been altered.2 That married women's property reform came in a slow piecemeal fashion suggests that those men dealing with the issue in legislatures and courts must have differed among themselves in their attitudes toward the changes being wrought. Such cultural ambiva-

Estate Duty on Life Assurances and Annuities

SynopsisThe paper is concerned mainly with the incidence of estate duty on life assurances and annuities under sub-sections 2 (1) (c) and 2 (1) (d) of the Finance Act 1894. The effect of changes in the law introduced by section 34 of the Finance Act 1959 are examined by reference to two trust policies effected under the Married Women's Property Acts, one a policy for the absolute benefit of the wife of the life assured and the other a policy also for the benefit of the wife but with the trust falling should she predecease her husband. Where the assessment falls under sub-section 2 (1) (c) the treatment of life policies now follows the same lines as gifts of other types of property and the requirements to obtain limitation or exemption from duty are considered in detail.The paper goes on to review the incidence of estate duty on joint life and last survivor annuities according to the manner in which the contract is written.Finally some examples are given of the effect on estate duty of dealings with policies by beneficiaries in terms of section 34 of the Finance Act 1959.

Précis of a Lecture on the Married Women'S Property Acts 1870 and 1882

The law which governs life assurance contracts, their formation and their execution is, to a very large extent, the same law as that which governs mercantile contracts generally. The titles to life policies are affected by the law of contract, of mortgage, of partnership, and so on. There are, however, some legal principles and statutory provisions which affect life assurance alone, and among them are the following sections in the Married Women's Property Acts, 1870 and 1882.Married Women's Property Act, 1870, Section 10.A married woman may effect a policy of insurance upon her own life or the life of her husband for her separate use, and the same and all benefit thereof, if expressed on the face of it to be so effected, shall enure accordingly, and the contract in such policy shall be as valid as if made with an unmarried woman.

The Husband's Liability for His Wife's Torts as Affected by the Married Women's Property Acts

The Husband's Liability for His Wife's Torts as Affected by the Married Women's Property Acts

Husband and Wife. Effect of Married Women's Property Acts on Husband's Liability for Wife's Torts "Sounding in Contract"

Husband and Wife. Effect of Married Women's Property Acts on Husband's Liability for Wife's Torts "Sounding in Contract"

Estates by the Entirety. Effect of Married Women's Property Acts

Estates by the Entirety. Effect of Married Women's Property Acts

Effect of the Married Women's Property Acts upon Estates by the Entirety

Effect of the Married Women's Property Acts upon Estates by the Entirety

Husband and Wife. Liability of Husband for Wife's Torts. Effect of Married Women's Property Acts

Husband and Wife. Liability of Husband for Wife's Torts. Effect of Married Women's Property Acts

Husband and Wife. Rights and Liabilities of Husband as to Third Parties. Effect of Married Women's Property Acts on Husband's Action for Loss of Consortium

Husband and Wife. Rights and Liabilities of Husband as to Third Parties. Effect of Married Women's Property Acts on Husband's Action for Loss of Consortium