Favoured or oppressed? Married women, property and ‘coverture’ in England, 1660–1800

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, the condition of English wives under ‘coverture’ was both defended as one of privilege and attacked as worse than slavery. This article suggests that married women were not in reality confined within coverture's regulations on credit and property ownership. Their economic activities were fairly broad and flexible and they had an instinctive sense of possession over some goods during wedlock, perceiving their contributions to marriage as a pooling of resources for familial benefit. It will be suggested that wives did not necessarily think that their conduct in acting as if some marital property was legally theirs was illegitimate, because it was facilitated by coverture and the legal devices that allowed it to function.

The social consequences of legal reform: women and property in a Canadian community

“…The fact that some women found ways to circumvent and at least partly evade the restrictions is itself a reason to question the practical economic importance (if not symbolic significance) of MWPA. 3 Precisely how, if at all, MWPA changed life for most women remains an unresolved question in the literature of a number of countries. Of course, similar legislative intent might have given rise to different outcomes in the various common law jurisdictions because laws differed, as did local property markets and the timing of legal reform.…”