Married Women's Property Act 1870

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The English law Married Women's Property Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. C.93 - German: Property Act for Married Women, 1870 ) - was a law of the English Parliament , which in 1870 allowed married women to be legal owners of their earned income and property to inherit.

background

Before 1870, any income a woman received through wages, investments, gifts, or inheritance would automatically become the property of the husband when she married. For through this the identity of the wife was legally absorbed by that of the husband or covered over by his; she effectively made both one person before the law.

If a woman was married, she was not entitled to her property, as the husband had full control over it and could do whatever he wanted with him: “Thus, a woman, on marrying, relinquished her personal property - moveable property such as money, stocks, furniture, and livestock --- to her husband's ownership; by law he was permitted to dispose of it at will at any time in the marriage and could even will it away at death ". (German: In this way, through marriage, a woman transferred her personal property - movable property such as money, stocks and equipment, furniture and cattle - into the property of the man; by law he was allowed to do so at any time within the Marriage, and he could give it away by disposition when he died. )

For example, any material with a “copyright” passed to the husband upon marriage. Much like it was with an employer, where the copyright that arose during employment belonged to the employer. Even in death, the husband continued to have control over their former possessions. Before the law was passed, women lost all of their property if they were married.

"From the early thirteenth century until 1870, English Common law held that most of the property that a wife had owned as a 'feme sole' came under the control of the husband at the time of the marriage". (German: Since the early 13th century, English common law had applied that most of the property that had belonged to the woman as 'feme sole' came under the control of her husband - at the time of their marriage. ) Married women had few legal rights and were not recognized as separate legal entities before the law - only a "feme sole" was. In contrast to wives, single and widowed women were considered “femes sole” under common law. They had the right to own property under their own name, of course.

When a woman became a wife, she still had the right to legally, that is, formally own her land or house, but she no longer had any authority to do anything with it, like renting a house or selling a piece of land. Nothing worked without her husband's approval. She could not enter into contracts or run into debt without his approval. She herself could not sue in court or be charged in court.

Text of the work by Barbara Bodichon as PDF file

Only the extremely wealthy were exempt from these laws: Under the “Rules of Equity”, part of the property of the married woman could be redeemed in the form of a trust for her use or the use of her children. The procedural costs of establishing a trust made it unaffordable for the vast majority of the population.

In the 1850s, women began to get legislation going, many years before it was successfully passed itself. At the time, a group of women had campaigned for this law to no avail. An important woman who took care of this matter was Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827-1891). She was active in promoting women's rights and in 1854 published A Brief Summary of the Laws in England concerning Women: together with a few observations thereon. (German: A brief summary of the English laws concerning women, along with some observations. ) She worked hard to reform the "Married Women's Property Laws". As an artist, she also helped establish the Society for Female Artists in 1857. 1865, she founded the imaginary women-only "Kensington Society" for which they text 1,866 Reasons for the enfranchisement of Women (German: reasons for women's suffrage ) wrote. She was also a friend of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), who wrote Middlemarch .

In 1868 efforts to enforce the law were revitalized; That year, that law, the Married Women's Property Bill, was put before Parliament, which proposed that married women should have the same property rights as unmarried women. A long and energetic campaign by various groups of women and some men led to the passage of the law in 1870.

The Married Women's Property Act of 1870 ensured that wages and property acquired through work or inheritance had to be viewed as separate property of the woman, regardless of origin and regardless of the time of acquisition. The law protected a woman not only from her husband gaining control of her property but also from the people who worked for him, his creditors: "These acts generally exempted married women's property from attachments by creditors of their husbands." German: These laws generally excluded the property of married women before their husbands' creditors could access them . ) This enabled married women to create separate legal property and released them from gender guardianship . It was theoretically possible for the first time that married women could live apart from their husbands and support their own children. Widowed women with children, as femes soles, had this right to own property and to care for their children beforehand.

Contents of the law

The main sections of the law were:

  • 1.) Wages and incomes what a woman earned had to remain in her hand for her separate use, regardless of her husband. The term earned income includes the money from any employment relationship, from employment or trade, or from the use of a talent, such as the literary, scientific or artistic ability with which one has earned money. This section also included the investments that had been made with this earned money.
  • 2.) This section dealt primarily with the inheritance of property. A wife was allowed to keep any property that she inherited from close relatives as her own, provided that this property was not incorporated into a statutory trust (special property). She was also allowed to inherit money up to a sum of £ 200.
  • 3.) This section allowed a married woman to continue to own rental property in her own name and to inherit rented property.
  • 4.) This section made married women responsible for providing for their children by means of the profits from their personal property. But it also stressed husbands responsibility for the upkeep of their children. As a result, this section held both parents legally accountable for having separate property of their own.

Missing regulations

  • The law mostly dealt with the merit of married women and was not very specific when it came to property rights of married women. A major drawback was that any personal property (English: personalty ) had, in contrast to real estate holdings, which a woman before marriage under their name, legally became the property of her husband: money. Furniture, equipment and live cattle.
  • Women who later married were entitled to inherit up to the quite considerable sum of £ 200 in property on their behalf from their closest relatives. Nothing was said about a higher amount.
  • The law was not retroactive; all women who were previously married could not restore themselves to their previous status and no longer got the property from the pre-marriage period (if they had one). This considerably limited the effect of the law.

Legacy and aftermath

The full meaning of the law was that, for the first time in British history, newly married women were legally allowed to keep their own incomes and inherit property permanently. It also obliged married women to support their children legally, as was the case with their husbands. Women who married before the law lost their property rights. She also had no authority over all of her children born during the marriage, "which deprived her of all authority over her children and of any contractual capacity during his [her husband's] life". (German: what she deprived of any power over her children and any right of disposal during his [her husband's] life )

When this law came into effect, it was at a time when women had very few rights. Women did not have the right to vote in parliamentary elections. It could be argued that this law "paved" the way for women to vote by expanding female property rights. It should not be overlooked that women have been denied this right to vote for one reason:

“Coverture was also used as a reason to deny women the vote and public office because of the assumption that a married woman would be represented by her husband. The end of coverture certainly ranks along with suffrage as the sine qua non [inception] of public recognition of women's autonomy and personhood ”.

(German: Coverture [marital guardianship] was also given as a reason to forbid women from voting and public office because there was the assumption that a married woman would be represented by her spouse. The end of marital guardianship certainly goes hand in hand with women's suffrage as the sine qua non , the [beginning] of the public recognition of the autonomy of women and their own person. )

Women were not previously seen as individuals with their own voting rights, let alone being elected; their husbands traditionally took control of these affairs.

The law helped lay the foundations for a broader, more privileged version of the law, the Married Women's Property Act 1882 , and also important to the 1918 Suffrage Reform Act , the Representation of the People Act 1918 , that many Gave the right to vote in the United Kingdom to women over the age of 30.

Contemporary criticism

The royal couple in Windsor, a role model for the happy home?

There has been a lot of negative feedback after the 1870 law was passed. Some people have said that the law is not designed for the well-being of women, but is actually more concerned with the scams married couples commit when it comes to evading the law of obligations. In contrast, many feminists saw this law as a great success for married women, because women were most important to them.

Extreme views, arguably from the upper class, were that the idea that each spouse was equal to the other was completely absurd. The doctrine of the law of conjugal equality has been condemned as barbaric and semi-civilized. Rather than discussing equality, they talked about how negatively the law would affect a household because it would cause domestic disputes. It has been suggested that a home can only be a truly happy home if the husband is in charge and the wife is submissive and obedient.

“There was no place in the Victorian home for disputes between husbands and wives if the home was to be the 'sweetest, cheerfullest place' that the husband could find refuge in. Within the terms of separate spheres ideology, this household harmony could only be achieved by the total subordination of women to their husbands ”.

(German: There was no place in a Victorian home for disputes between husbands and wives when it came to the question that the home should be the 'sweetest, most joyful place' in which the husband could find refuge from outer life. Under the rules According to the ideology of the separate spheres of life, this domestic harmony could only be maintained if women completely subordinated themselves to men. )

See also

Literature cited

  • Ben Griffin: Class, Gender, and Liberalism in Parliament, 1868-1882: The Case of the Married Women's Property Acts . In: The Historical Journal . tape 46 , no. 1 , March 2003, ISSN  1469-5103 , p. 59–87 , doi : 10.1017 / s0018246x02002844 (English).
  • Mary Lyndon Shanley: Suffrage, Protective Labor Legislation, and Married Women's Property Laws in England . In: Signs . tape 12 , no. 1 , 1986, pp. 62-77 , doi : 10.1086 / 494297 (English).

Further literature

  • The text of the law. Retrieved March 30, 2019
  • Arthur Hobhouse: On the forfeiture of property by married women Manchester, A. Ireland & Co. 1870

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rachel Ablow: One Flesh, One Person, and the 1870 Married Women's Property Act In: Web site of "www.branchcollective.org". Retrieved March 30, 2019
  2. ↑ Combs, p. 1031
  3. ↑ Combs, p. 1031
  4. ^ Rachel Ablow: One Flesh, One Person, and the 1870 Married Women's Property Act In: Web site of "www.branchcollective.org". Retrieved March 30, 2019
  5. ↑ Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon - Person Extended - National Portrait Gallery. In: website of www.npg.org.uk.Retrieved March 30, 2019
  6. ^ Griffin, p. 62
  7. ^ Marriage, Wife Beating and the Law in Victorian England, p. 101
  8. ↑ Richard H. Chused: The Oregon Donation Act of 1850 and Nineteenth Century Federal Married Women's Property Law In: Law and History Review, Volume 2, Issue 1 (1984), p. 44. DOI 10.2307 / 743910
  9. ↑ Shanley, p. 72
  10. ↑ Olive M. Stone: The Status of Women in Great Britain In: The American Journal of Comparative Law, Volume 20, Issue 4 (1972). S: 592. DOI 10.2307 / 839032
  11. ↑ Combs, p. 1029
  12. ^ Mary Lyndon Shanley: Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England . Princeton University Press 1993. ISBN 978-0-691-02487-5
  13. ↑ Rachel Ablow: One Flesh, One Person, and the 1870 Married Women's Property Act , see website des branchcollective.org.Retrieved March 30, 2019
  14. ↑ Shanley, p. 73
  15. ^ Griffin, p. 63