Editing Coverture (section)

== History ==
[[File:Married-state-ca1780.jpg|thumb|Portrait of an English married couple, circa 1780]]
The system of ''feme sole'' and ''feme covert'' developed in England in the [[High Middle Ages|High]] and [[Late Middle Ages]] as part of the [[common law]] system, which had its origins in the legal reforms of [[Henry II of England|Henry II]] and other medieval English kings. Medieval legal treatises, such as that famously known as [[Henry de Bracton|Bracton]], described the nature of coverture and its impact on married women's legal actions. Bracton states that husband and wife were a single person, being one flesh and one blood, a principle known as 'unity of person'. Husbands also wielded power over their wives, being their rulers and custodians of their property.<ref>{{Cite book|title=De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae / On the laws and customs of England, edited by George E. Woodbine; translated, with revisions and notes, by Samuel E. Thorne|last=Bracton|first=Henry de|publisher=Selden Society|year=1968|location=Cambridge, Mass.|pages=vol.4, p. 335}}</ref>

While it was once assumed that married women had little or no access to legal recourse, as a result of coverture, historians have more recently complicated our knowledge of coverture in the Middle Ages through various studies of married women's legal status across different courts and jurisdictions.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Married women and the law in premodern northwest Europe|date=2013|publisher=Boydell Press|others=Beattie, Cordelia,, Stevens, Matthew Frank|isbn=9781843838333|location=Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK|oclc=845257609}}</ref> Collectively, many of these studies have argued that 'there has been a tendency to overplay the extent to which coverture applied', as legal records reveal that married women could possess rights over property, could take part in business transactions, and interact with the courts.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Married women and the law in premodern northwest Europe|date=2013|publisher=Boydell Press|others=Beattie, Cordelia,, Stevens, Matthew Frank|isbn=9781843838333|location=Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK|pages=10|oclc=845257609}}</ref> In medieval post-conquest Wales, it has been suggested that coverture only applied in certain situations. Married women were responsible for their own actions in criminal presentments and defamation, but their husbands represented them in litigation for abduction and in interpersonal pleas.<ref>{{Cite book|title='Married women, crime and the courts in Wales' in Married women and the law in premodern northwest Europe|last=Johnson|first=Lizabeth|date=2013|publisher=Boydell Press|others=Beattie, Cordelia,, Stevens, Matthew Frank|isbn=9781843838333|location=Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK|pages=71–90|oclc=845257609}}</ref>

The extent of coverture in medieval England has also been qualified by the existence of ''feme sole'' customs that existed in some medieval English towns. This granted them independent commercial and legal rights as if they were single. This practice is outlined in the [[custumal]] of [[Henry Darcy]], [[Lord Mayor of London]] in the 1330s, allowing married women working independently of their husband to act as a single woman in all matters concerning her craft, such as renting a shop and suing and being sued for debt.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Barron|first=Caroline|date=1989|title='The 'Golden Age' of Women in Medieval London'|journal=Reading Medieval Studies|volume=15|pages=40}}</ref> The custom is known to have been adopted in a number of other towns, including Bristol, Lincoln, York, Sandwich, Rye, Carlisle, Chester and Exeter.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=McIntosh|first=Marjorie K.|date=2005|title=The Benefits and Drawbacks of Femme Sole Status in England, 1300–1630|journal=Journal of British Studies|language=en|volume=44|issue=3|pages=413|doi=10.1086/429708|issn=1545-6986}}</ref> Some North American British colonies also adopted this custom in the eighteenth century.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women and the Law of Property in Early America|url=https://archive.org/details/womenlawofprop00salm|url-access=registration|last=Salmon|first=Marylynn|year=1986|location=Chapel Hill, NC|pages=[https://archive.org/details/womenlawofprop00salm/page/44 44]–49}}</ref> However, it is unclear how many women took up this status, the extent to which it was legally enforced, or whether the legal and commercial independence it offered were advantageous.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Beattie|first=Cordelia|date=2008|title='Living as a Single Person': marital status, performance and the law in late medieval England|url=https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/9312013/Living_as_a_single_person.pdf|journal=Women's History Review|volume=17|issue=3|pages=327–340|doi=10.1080/09612020801924381|hdl=20.500.11820/b4cb43c8-48e3-4a06-8cd6-3ab6134fdf1a |s2cid=144583700}}</ref>

According to Chernock, "coverture,&nbsp;... [a 1777] author&nbsp;... concluded, was the product of foreign Norman invasion in the eleventh century—not, as Blackstone would have it, a time-tested 'English' legal practice. This was a reading of British history, then, that put a decidedly feminist twist on the idea of the '[[Norman yoke]].{{'"}}<ref>{{harvp|Chernock|2010|pp=91, 86}}</ref> Also according to Chernock, "the [[Saxons]],&nbsp;... [Calidore] boasted, had encouraged women to 'retain separate property'—&nbsp;... a clear blow to coverture."<ref>{{harvp|Chernock|2010|p=91}}</ref>{{Efn|Calidore was a pseudonymous author ("probably&nbsp;... Andrew Macdonald") of a letter to ''[[The Gentleman's Magazine]]'', vol. 58, p.&nbsp;101 (February, 1788).}} Chernock claims that "as the historical accounts of the laws regarding women had indicated, coverture was a policy not just foreign in its origins but also suited to particular and now remote historical conditions."<ref name="Chernock_93" /> Coverture may not have existed in "the Anglo-Saxon constitution".<ref name="Chernock_93" />

Coverture also held sway in English-speaking colonies because of the influence of the English common law there. The way in which coverture operated across the common law world has been the subject of recent studies examining the subordinating effects of marriage for women across medieval and early modern England and North America, in a variety of legal contexts.<ref name="Stretton">{{Cite book|title=Married Women and the Law: Coverture in England and the Common Law World|others=Stretton, Tim, 1963-, Kesselring, K. J. (Krista J.)|isbn=9780773542976|location=Montreal|oclc=860349875|last1 = Stretton|first1 = Tim|last2 = Kesselring|first2 = Krista J.|year = 2013}}</ref> It has been argued that in practice, most of the rules of coverture "served not to guide every transaction but rather to provide clarity and direction in times of crisis or death."<ref name="Stretton"/> Despite this flexibility, coverture remained a powerful tool of marital inequality for many centuries.<ref name="Stretton"/>

===Criticism===
{{Globalize|section|United States of America|date=March 2023}}
[[File:Mary Ritter Beard (148004v).jpg|thumb|upright|alt=Black and white photograph of the bust of a young white woman before a white background with dark hair parted in the middle and tied up in the back, a serious countenance with eyes on the viewer, and a dark jacket over a white blouse.|Early feminist historian [[Mary Ritter Beard]]]]
Early [[Feminism|feminist]] historian [[Mary Ritter Beard]] held the view that much of the severity of the doctrine of coverture was actually due to Blackstone and other late systematizers rather than due to a genuine old common-law tradition.<ref>{{harvp|Beard|1946}}</ref>

In March 1776, [[Abigail Adams]] saw an opportunity in the language of [[Natural and legal rights|natural rights]], and wrote to her husband, [[John Adams]]:

{{blockquote|In the new [[United States Code|Code of Laws]] which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/view?id=AFC01d244|title=Adams Papers Digital Edition - Massachusetts Historical Society|website=www.masshist.org|language=en|access-date=2018-07-31}}</ref>}}

She was not writing generally about [[women's rights]], nor specifically about the [[Suffrage|right to vote]]. She was asking for relief from coverture. John responded, "I cannot but laugh."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://wams.nyhistory.org/building-a-new-nation/navigating-the-new-government/remember-the-ladies/|title=Remember the Ladies|last=New-York Historical Society|access-date=2024-08-17}}</ref>

According to Chernock, "late [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] radicals&nbsp;... argued&nbsp;... [that 'coverture' and other 'principles'] did not reflect the 'advancements' of a modern, civilized society. Rather, they were markers of past human errors and inconsistencies, and thus in need of further revision."<ref>{{harvp|Chernock|2010|p=88}}</ref> Chernock claimed that "as the editor of Blackstone's ''Commentaries'', [Edward] Christian used his popular thirteenth edition, published in 1800, to highlight the ways in which the practice of coverture might be modified."<ref name="Chernock_93"/> Chernock wrote that "Christian&nbsp;... proceeded to recommend that a husband cease to be 'absolutely master of the profits of the wife's lands during the coverture.{{'"}}<ref name="Chernock_93"/> Chernock reported that other men sought for coverture to be modified or eliminated.<ref>{{harvp|Chernock|2010|p=93}} and see pp.&nbsp;93–96</ref>

[[File:John Neal by Sarah Miriam Peale 1823 Portland Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|right|upright|alt=Color oil painting of the bust of a young white man with light brown short wavy hair and a plain countenance, looking at the viewer. The raised color of a white shirt is visible beneath a dark jacket and cloak. He stands before a plain brown-green background.|Writer, lawyer, women's rights advocate, and early coverture opponent, [[John Neal]]]]
According to Ellen Carol DuBois, "the initial target of women's rights protest was the legal doctrine of 'coverture{{' "}}.<ref>{{harvp|DuBois|1998|p=283}} and see pp.&nbsp;284–286 & 293</ref> The earliest American women's rights lecturer, [[John Neal]]<ref>{{Cite book | publisher = A. J. Huston | last = Daggett | first = Windsor | title = A Down-East Yankee From the District of Maine | location = Portland, Maine | year = 1920 | url = https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007921667 | page = 30}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Sears | first = Donald A. | title = John Neal | publisher = Twayne | location = Boston, Massachusetts | year = 1978 | isbn = 080-5-7723-08 | page = 98}}</ref> attacked coverture in speeches and public debates as early as 1823,<ref name="Neal 1869 49">{{cite book | last = Neal | first = John | author-link = John Neal | title = Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy Life | publisher = Roberts Brothers | location = Boston, Massachusetts | year = 1869 | url = https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100576292 | page = 49}}</ref> but most prominently in the 1840s,<ref>{{cite book | last = Fleischmann | first = Fritz | editor2-last = Carlson | editor2-first = David J. | editor1-last = Watts | editor1-first = Edward | chapter = Chapter 12: "A Right Manly Man" in 1843: John Neal on Women's Rights and the Problem of Male Feminism | page = 248 | title = John Neal and Nineteenth Century American Literature and Culture | publisher = Bucknell University Press | location = Lewisburg, Pennsylvania | year = 2012 | isbn = 978-1-61148-420-5}}</ref> asking "how long [women] shall be rendered by law incapable of acquiring, holding, or transmitting property, except under special conditions, like the slave?"<ref name="Neal 1869 49"/> In the 1850s, according to DuBois, [[Lucy Stone]] criticized "the common law of marriage because it 'gives the "custody" of the wife's person to her husband, so that he has a right to her even against herself.{{'"}}<ref>{{harvp|DuBois|1998|pp=87–88}}</ref> Stone kept her premarital family name after marriage as a protest "against all manifestations of coverture".<ref>{{harvp|DuBois|1998|p=88}}</ref> DuBois continued, "in the 1850s,&nbsp;... {{Nowrap|[t]he}} primarily legal goal [of 'the American women's rights movement'] was the establishment of basic property rights for women once they were married, which went to the core of the deprivations of coverture."<ref>{{harvp|DuBois|1998|pp=286–287}} and see p.&nbsp;288.</ref> Chernock continued, "for those who determined that legal reforms were the key to achieving a more enlightened relationship between the sexes, coverture was a primary object of attention."<ref name="Chernock_93">{{harvp|Chernock|2010|p=93}}</ref>

DuBois wrote that coverture, because of property restrictions with the vote, "played a major role in" influencing the effort to secure [[Women's suffrage in the United States|women's right to vote in the U.S.]],<ref>{{harvp|DuBois|1998|p=260}} and see p.&nbsp;261.</ref> because one view was that the right should be limited to women who owned property when coverture excluded most women (relatively few were unmarried or widowed),<ref>{{harvp|DuBois|1998|p=257}}</ref> while another view was for the right to be available for all women.<ref>{{harvp|DuBois|1998|p=261}}</ref>

In the mid-19th century, according to Melissa J. Homestead, coverture was criticized as depriving married women authors of the financial benefits of their [[copyright]]s,<ref>{{harvp|Homestead|2010|pp=21, 23}} and see pp.&nbsp;24, 30, 33, 35–37, 49, 54, 57 & 58</ref> including analogizing to [[slavery]]; one woman poet "explicitly analogized her legal status as a married woman author to that of an American slave."<ref>{{harvp|Homestead|2010|p=24}} and see pp.&nbsp;29 & 59–60 & 61</ref> According to Homestead, feminists also criticized the effect of coverture on rights under [[patent]]s held by married women.<ref>{{harvp|Homestead|2010|p=24}}</ref>

Hendrik Hartog counter-criticized that coverture was only a [[legal fiction]] and not descriptive of social reality<ref>{{harvp|Homestead|2010|p=30}}</ref> and that courts applying [[equity (legal concept)|equity jurisdiction]] had developed many exceptions to coverture,<ref>{{harvp|Homestead|2010|pp=30–31}}</ref> but, according to Norma Basch, the exceptions themselves still required that the woman be dependent on someone<ref>{{harvp|Homestead|2010|p=31}}</ref> and not all agreements between spouses to let wives control their property were enforceable in court.<ref>{{harvp|Homestead|2010|p=32}}</ref>

[[File:Myra Bradwell 1870.png|thumb|left|upright|alt=Black and white photograph of a middle age white woman sitting at a table with her left arm on her lap and her right arm on the table. She wears a dark dress and has long dark hair tied up on the top of her head. She has a faraway look on her face.|Publisher and activist [[Myra Bradwell]]]]
[[File:HULDA REGINA GRASER.jpg|thumb|[[Hulda Regina Graser]], ''femme sole'', ''femme consort'' (1897)]]
In 1869, coverture was criticized when [[Myra Bradwell]] was refused permission to practice as a lawyer in Illinois specifically because of coverture.<ref name="DuBois_127">{{harvp|DuBois|1998|p=127}}</ref> In 1871, Bradwell argued to the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] that coverture violated the Constitution's [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th Amendment]].<ref name="DuBois_127"/> According to Margot Canaday, "coverture's main purpose&nbsp;... was the legal subordination of women."<ref>{{harvp|Canaday|2008|p=445}} and see pp.&nbsp;465 & 845</ref> Canaday continued, "women's legal subordination through marriage&nbsp;... was maintained in fact across [coverture]".<ref name="Canaday_465">{{harvp|Canaday|2008|p=465}}</ref>

According to Canaday, "coverture was diminished&nbsp;... in the 1970s, as part of a broader feminist revolution in law that further weakened the principle that a husband owned a wife's labor (including her person).&nbsp;... The regime of coverture&nbsp;... was coming undone [in the mid-20th century]".<ref>{{harvp|Canaday|2008|p=445}} and see p.&nbsp;466 & 471.</ref> In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court said "the institution of coverture is&nbsp;... obsolete"<ref name="USvYazell-351-ctop">[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=382&invol=341 ''U.S.'' v. ''Yazell''], as accessed August 24, 2013 (authoritatively published in 382 U.S. 341, at p.&nbsp;351 (1966)) (opinion of court).</ref> even while acknowledging coverture's existence in 1–11 states.<ref name="USvYazell-351-ctop" /> In a separate opinion in the same case, [[Hugo Black]] and two others of the nine [[Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States|justices]] said the "fiction that the husband and wife are one... in reality&nbsp;... {{Nowrap|mean[ing]}} that though the husband and wife are one, the one is the husband....[,] rested on&nbsp;... a&nbsp;... notion that a married woman, being a female, is without capacity to make her own contracts and do her own business",<ref name="USvYazell-361-dissent">[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=382&invol=341 ''U.S.'' v. ''Yazell''], at p.&nbsp;361 (Black, J.<!-- = 'Justice' -->, joined by [[William O. Douglas]] and [[Byron White]], JJ.<!-- = 'Justices' -->) (dissenting on decision regarding lower court's decision).</ref> a notion that Black "had supposed is&nbsp;... completely discredited".<ref name="USvYazell-361-dissent" /> Black described modern (as of 1966) coverture as an "archaic remnant of a primitive caste system".<ref name="USvYazell-361-dissent" /><ref>{{harvp|Law|1984|p=970}}</ref> Canaday wrote, "the application of equal protection law to marital relations finally eviscerated the law of coverture"<ref>{{harvp|Canaday|2008|p=466}}, citing U.S. Supreme Court decisions in ''[[Frontiero v. Richardson]]'' (1973), ''[[Orr v. Orr]]'' (1979) & ''[[Kirchberg v. Feenstra]]'' (1981).</ref>{{Efn|Black's reference to "equal protection law" includes in particular the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution]], ratified in 1868 following the Civil War; though originally intended to recognize equal rights for racial minorities, its wording was not specific to any distinction between classes of people and it was applied to gender in the 20th century.}} and "coverture unraveled with accelerating speed [in the late 20th century]".<ref name="Canaday_465" /> "Coverture's demise blunted (even if it did not eliminate) male privilege within marriage", according to Canaday.<ref>{{harvp|Canaday|2008|p=468}}</ref>

=== Abolition ===
This situation continued until the mid-to-late 19th century, when Married Women's Property Acts started to be passed in many English-speaking jurisdictions, setting the stage for further reforms.

In the United States, many states passed [[Married Women's Property Acts in the United States|Married Women's Property Acts]]<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/366305/Married-Womens-Property-Acts "Married Women's Property Acts (United States [1839&#93;)"]. ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.</ref> to eliminate or reduce the effects of coverture. Nineteenth-century courts in the United States also enforced state [[privy examination]] laws. A privy examination was an American legal practice in which a married woman who wished to sell her property had to be separately examined by a judge or justice of the peace outside of the presence of her husband and asked if her husband was pressuring her into signing the document. This practice was seen as a means to protect married women's property from overbearing husbands.<ref>[http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_womens_history/v012/12.2braukman.html "Married Women's Property and Male Coercion: United States Courts and the Privy Examination, 1864–1887"]. ''Project MUSE''.</ref> Other states abolished the concept through court cases, for example: California in ''Follansbee v. Benzenberg'' (1954).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/2d/122/466.html|title=Follansbee v. Benzenberg}}</ref> The abolition of coverture has been seen as "one of the greatest extensions of property rights in human history", and one that led to a number of positive financial and economic impacts. Specifically, it led to shifts in household portfolios, a positive shock to the supply of credit, and a reallocation of labor towards non-agriculture and capital intensive industries.<ref>Hazan, Moshe; Weiss, David; and Zoabi, Hosny (October 29, 2018). [https://m.tau.ac.il/~davidweiss/WomenRights.pdf "Women's Liberation as a Financial Innovation"]. ''Journal of Finance''.</ref>

As recently as 1972, two US states allowed a wife accused in criminal court to offer as a legal defense that she was obeying her husband's orders.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20100728112409/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942533,00.html "The Law: Up from Coverture"]. ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''. March 20, 1972.</ref>