coverture

Coverture is a historical legal doctrine in English and Anglo-American law that held a married woman’s legal personality and rights were subsumed by her husband. Under coverture, a wife could not own property, enter contracts, or sue or be sued in her own name, and her earnings and property were generally controlled by her husband. The concept originated in medieval English law and was exported to many colonies and common-law jurisdictions, where it persisted in various forms for centuries.

The doctrine implied that a husband and wife were one legal person, with the husband acting as head of household and administrator of family affairs. This meant limited or no independent control over property, contracts, or legal actions for wives. Children were typically under the legal guardianship of the father, and a wife’s rights in marriage were shaped by her husband’s authority. Related ideas included the notion of femme covert (a married woman) and feme sole (an unmarried or widowed woman), and the legal mechanisms of dower (the wife’s entitlement to a portion of her husband’s estate after his death) and curtesy (the husband’s rights to his wife’s property upon her death).

Over the 19th and early 20th centuries, many jurisdictions began reforming or repealing coverture through Married Women’s Property Acts and similar legislation, allowing married women to own property, control earnings, and engage in contracts independently of their husbands. The doctrine gradually declined and was largely abolished in modern civil and common-law systems, though its legacy remains a significant subject in legal and gender-history scholarship.