Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
- Publication
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Family Law
"Well-Behaved Women Don't Make History": Rethinking English Family, Law, And History, Danaya C. Wright
"Well-Behaved Women Don't Make History": Rethinking English Family, Law, And History, Danaya C. Wright
Danaya C. Wright
In 1857 Parliament finally succumbed to public and political pressure and passed a bill creating a domestic relations court: the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes. This new court for the first time in common-law history, combined the following jurisdictions: the ecclesiastical court's jurisdiction over marital validity and separation; the Chancery court's jurisdiction over child custody and equitable estates; the common-law court's jurisdiction over property; and Parliament's jurisdiction over divorce and marital settlements. Wives were given the legal right to seek a divorce or judicial separation in a court of law, receive custody of the children of the marriage, and …
The Beginning Of The End Of Coverture: A Reappraisal Of The Married Woman’S Separate Estate, Allison Anna Tait
The Beginning Of The End Of Coverture: A Reappraisal Of The Married Woman’S Separate Estate, Allison Anna Tait
Allison Anna Tait
Before statutory enactments in the nineteenth century granted married women a limited set of property rights, the separate estate trust was, by and large, the sole form of married women’s property. Although the separate estate allowed married women to circumvent the law of coverture, historians have generally viewed the separate estate as an ineffective vehicle for extending property rights to married women. In this Article, I reappraise the separate estate’s utility and argue that Chancery’s separate estate jurisprudence during the eighteenth century was a critical first step in the establishment of married women as property-holders. Separate estates guaranteed critical financial …