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71 Geo. L. J. 1359 (1982-1983)
Married Women's Property Law: 1800-1850

handle is hein.journals/glj71 and id is 1375 raw text is: Married Women's Property Law: 1800-1850* RICHARD H. CHUSED** In the middle of the nineteenth century, numerous jurisdictions passed acts for the protection of married women'sproperty. Many commenta- tors hold the view that these acts were part of a concerted attack on the institution of coverture and the prevailing societal view of married wo- men. Professor Chused takes afresh look at this conception, tracing the development of the property rights of women in the early 1800s. In Part , he presents archival material that relects an increase in wives' control offamilypropertyprior to the enactment of married women's property laws. Part II presents an analysis of the legal arena in this pre-enact- ment period, illuminating reforms that represented a growing trend to ameliorate some of the more extremefeatures of coverture law. In Part III, the author uses recent literature on women in the early 1800s to show that this trend was accompanied by growth in the responsibility women had for their families. Professor Chused concludes that it is likely that the enactment of married women'sproperty laws reflected an increase in women's famiy responsibilities, more than their emergence into the larger commercial and political world INTRODUCTION 1848 is commonly thought of as the year the women's rights movement be- gan. That year witnessed both the Seneca Falls Convention and the adoption of the well-known New York married women's act. The dearth of literature on women's law in the 1800-1850 period' has made it all too easy for the legal community and the modem feminist movement to label 1848 as the pivotal year. The confluence of events in 1848 has created a mythology that the mar- ried women's acts adopted in the 1840's were a frontal attack on both the insti- tution of coverture established by the common law and the prevailing cultural view of women as repositories of domestic virtue. Because a public women's movement and married women's legislation appeared in the same decade, it is * © 1983 by Richard H. Chused, Washington, D.C. ** Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. A number of people have worked with me intensely on this and related projects during the last two years. My colleague Wendy Williams, with whom I teach Women's Legal History, has spent so much time talking with me I have lost all ability to state the extent of her contributions to this article. My gratitude rather than a precise credit will have to suffice. Marjorie Brown, David Zolensky, Robert Stack, Elizabeth Ungar, and Robin Fradkin have provided terrific research assistance. I could not have completed this project without their help. Thanks are also due to Jim Oldham, another colleague newly immersed in legal history, for his guided tour through research into English law. 1. While the literature on women is now growing very rapidly, there is still a remarkable shortage of material on the early 19th century. The best of the general histories is E. FLEXNER, CENTURY OF STRUGGLE (rev. ed. 1975). Flexner's section on the Seneca Falls Convention describes some of the early experiences of those women who organized the meeting, particularly their exclusion from the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London which barred all women. Id at 71-77. The recent release of N. BASCH, IN THE EYES OF THE LAW: WOMEN, MARRIAGE, AND PROPERTY IN NINETEENTH- CENTURY NEW YORK (1982) provides a major improvement in the state of the literature. 1359

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