Genealogist Sharon Tate Moody wrote an excellent article this past week on the history of women’s property rights in America for her column in the “Life” section of Tampa Bay Tribune. Following is a teaser.
Modern-day genealogists often find it incomprehensible that for periods of history, married women couldn’t make wills. This oddity was ruled by a legal concept called coverture.
A single woman was a feme sole. Legally she could buy and sell property, and she could make a will to leave that property to persons of her choice. But when a woman married, she became a feme covert — her identity and her right to own property merged into that of her husband. Legally she ceased to exist.
Since she didn’t exist, she couldn’t own property, and if she couldn’t own property, she had nothing to leave in a will. It makes sense. Sort of.
Understanding this concept and knowing when it applied to a particular place are important. Initially the concept was in place in every state. In 1809, Connecticut led the way in passing the Married Women’s Property Acts, giving married women equal legal right with single women. Throughout the 19th century all states gradually passed similar laws. To learn more about this concept, go to http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/property_law.html.
A researcher must determine when this act was passed in a given state in order determine its impact on specific ancestors. The easiest way to find out when a specific state changed its laws is to put the terms “married women’s property acts (name a state)” into a search engine such as Google.
Read the full article in the October 16, 2011 edition of Tampa Bay Online.
