feme

Feme is an archaic English noun used chiefly in historical legal language to refer to a woman, particularly a married woman. It derives from Old French femme, meaning woman, and entered Middle English legal vocabulary to denote a woman’s civil status.

In traditional English law, the term distinguished two main statuses: feme sole and feme covert. A feme sole was a woman who lived independently of a husband, either because she was unmarried or widowed, and could own property, enter contracts, and sue or be sued in her own name. A feme covert referred to a married woman, whose legal rights and property were regarded as subsumed by her husband under the doctrine of coverture; a husband and wife were treated as a single legal entity, with the husband typically controlling property and contracts.

The distinction gradually faded as reforms expanded women’s legal capacity. In the United Kingdom, 19th-century Married Women’s Property Acts and later statutes allowed married women to own property and engage in contracts in their own right. Similar shifts occurred in many other jurisdictions, though the timeline and scope varied by country and region.

Today, the term appears mainly in historical, genealogical, or legal-historical contexts and is rarely used in contemporary law. It remains of interest for understanding the evolution of women’s legal status and property rights.