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Reconstructing Liberty, Equality, And Marriage: The Missing Nineteenth Amendment Argument, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The social movement that led to adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment sought not only women’s right to vote but also the end to a system of marriage law based on coverture. Under coverture, married women were deprived of property and contract rights and were de jure subservient to their husbands. Coverture also provided the predicate for denial of the vote. The model voter was the independent yeoman or worker able to express his own interests in a democratic system. Women were thought to be properly confined to the domestic sphere and dependent on their husbands, who were presumed to vote …