No female person had a legal identity
Historian Catherine Allgor explains “coverture”:
Coverture is a long-standing legal practice that is part of our colonial heritage. Though Spanish and French versions of coverture existed in the new world, United States coverture is based in English law. Coverture held that no female person had a legal identity. At birth, a female baby was covered by her father’s identity, and then, when she married, by her husband’s. The husband and wife became one–and that one was the husband. As a symbol of this subsuming of identity, women took the last names of their husbands. They were “feme coverts,” covered women. Because they did not legally exist, married women could not make contracts or be sued, so they could not own or work in businesses. Married women owned nothing, not even the clothes on their backs. They had no rights to their children, so that if a wife divorced or left a husband, she would not see her children again.
Why? Well, you know…it’s obvious. I mean I don’t want to be rude or anything but it’s obvious female people are just inferior, so the law naturally has to reflect that. Women are too weak and dim and kind of blobby to have any legal identity.
Married women had no rights to their bodies. That meant that not only would a husband have a claim to any wages generated by his wife’s labor or to the fruits of her body (her children), but he also had an absolute right to sexual access. Within marriage, a wife’s consent was implied, so under the law, all sex-related activity, including rape, was legitimate. His total mastery of this fellow human being stopped short, but just short, of death. Of course, a man wasn’t allowed to beat his wife to death, but he could beat her.
I’m not sure where the “of course” comes in. If he’s allowed to beat her he’s allowed to beat her to death, because what’s he supposed to do, know for sure when to stop? Duh, no, so you can tell him to try not to but that’s all.
So what happened to coverture? The short answer is that it has been eroded bit by bit. But it has never been fully abolished. The ghost of coverture has always haunted women’s lives and continues to do so. Coverture is why women weren’t regularly allowed on juries until the 1960s, and marital rape wasn’t a crime until the 1980s. Today’s women encounter coverture during real estate transactions, as I did, in tax matters, and in a myriad of other situations around employment and housing. Encounters with coverture can be serious, but often they are just puzzling annoyances, one more hoop to jump. Still, the remnants of coverture are holding us back in unsuspected ways.
The thinking behind it hasn’t disappeared either. The planet will be fried to a crisp before it is.
Updating to add: I forgot to h/t Valerie Tarico.
A wonderful book I read on related matters is https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-woman-they-could-not-silence-kate-moore/book/9781914484001.html.
Elizabeth Packard’s husband was determined to be rid of her and had her committed to an insane asylum, as was his right at the time. She fought to be recognised as sane, to be reunited with her children, and to resume her previously happy life. Abandoned by her husband and children, she found courage in helping the mentally ill women she shared her imprisonment with, wrote copious accounts of life in the asylum and was used and abused by the head doctor.
A sad story of a life wasted by the actions of others, and an uplifting tale of a woman who just would not give up her fight.
Rev, you beat me to it…I was just going to recommend that book.
There are definitely still hints of that. When we do our taxes, we do them married filing jointly because we get the best deal that way. The IRS says the head of the household is the one who provides more than half the cost of maintaining the home. The woman who does our taxes has to see that I am far and away in that position, yet she always lists my husband as head. Why? Because penis, that’s why. When my ex and I were married, I brought in 60% of the household income, did 99% of the household work, and worked more hours than he did. He was considered head of the household. Why? Because penis, that’s why.
Even with a Ph.D. in the hard sciences, a respected job (not high paying but medium paying, which counts), and an income that is better than he ever made…I still must be treated like a dependent.