Married Women and the Law

Married Women and the Law PDF Author: Tim Stretton
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773590145
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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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

Married Women and the Law PDF Author: Tim Stretton
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773590145
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Get Book Here

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's Separate Property in England, 1660-1833

Married Women's Separate Property in England, 1660-1833 PDF Author: Susan Staves
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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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

Wives & Property

Wives & Property PDF Author: Lee Holcombe
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487590180
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 490

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Book Description
In the 1870s Millicent Garrett Fawcett had her purse snatched by a young thief in London. When he appeared in court to testify, she heard the young man charged with 'stealing from the person of Millicent Fawcett a purse containing £1 18s 6d the property of Henry Fawcett.' Long after the episode she recalled: 'I felt as if I had been charged with theft myself.' The English common law which deprived married women of the right to own and control property had far-reaching consequences for the status of women not only in other areas of law and in family life but also in education, and employment, and public life. To win reform of the married women's property law, feminism as an organized movement appeared in the 1850s, and the final success of the campaigns for reform in 1882 was one of the greatest achievements of the Victorian women's movement. Dr Holcombe explores the story of the reform campaign in the context of its time, giving particular attention to the many important men and women who worked for reform and to the debates on the subject which contributed greatly to the formulation of a philosophy of feminism.

Married Women and Property Law in Victorian Ontario

Married Women and Property Law in Victorian Ontario PDF Author: Anne Lorene Chambers
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802078391
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1388

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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

Women and the Law of Property in Early America PDF Author: Marylynn Salmon
Publisher: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Women and the Law of Property in Early America

Women and Property

Women and Property PDF Author: Amy Louise Erickson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134785585
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
This ground-breaking book reveals the economic reality of ordinary women between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. Drawing on little-known sources, Amy Louise Erickson reconstructs day-to-day lives, showing how women owned, managed and inherited property on a scale previously unrecognised. Her complex and fascinating research, which contrasts the written laws with the actual practice, completely revises the traditional picture of women's economic status in pre-industrial England. Women and Property is essential reading for anyone interested in women, law and the past.

The Law Journal

The Law Journal PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 776

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Book Description


Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe

Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe PDF Author: Cordelia Beattie
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 1843838338
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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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.

Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans PDF Author: Andrew M. Riggsby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052168711X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Andrew Riggsby provides a survey of the main areas of Roman law, and their place in Roman life.

English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550

English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550 PDF Author: Barbara J. Harris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019028157X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Portraits of aristocratic women from the Yorkist and Tudor periods reveal elaborately clothed and bejeweled nobility, exemplars of their families' wealth. Unlike their male counterparts, their sitters have not been judged for their professional accomplishments. In this groundbreaking study, Barbara J. Harris argues that the roles of aristocratic wives, mothers, and widows constituted careers for women that had as much public and political significance and were as crucial for the survival and prosperity of their families and class as their husband's careers. Women, Harris demonstrates, were trained from an early age to manage their families' property and households; arrange the marriages and careers of their children; create, sustain, and exploit the client-patron relationships that were an essential element in politics at the regional and national levels; and, finally, manage the transmission and distribution of property from one generation to another, since most wives outlived their husbands. English Aristocratic Women unveils the lives of noblewomen whose historical influence has previously been dismissed, as well as those who became favorites at the court of Henry VIII. Through extensive archival research of documents belonging to more than twelve hundred families, Harris paints a collective portrait of upper-class women of this period. By recognizing the full significance of the aristocratic women's careers, this book reinterprets the politics and gender relations of early modern England. Barbara J. Harris is Professor of History and Women's Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her previous works include Edward Stafford, Third Duke of Buckingham, 1478-1521.