Women and private ownership in Regency England

Until the Married Women Property Acts of 1870 and 1882, the legal position of a woman, in regards to property ownership, largely depended on her marital status. This short essay sets out some of the inequalities of property ownership that pertained throughout the Regency period.

 

Regency legislation on property ownership and inheritance allocated different rights to women according to whether they were unmarried, married, or widowed.

 

 

Unmarried women, or feme sole, having reached the legal age of adulthood, had full managerial and ownership rights over their property. Although they could, if they chose to, be assisted by a legal guardian.

 

 

In contrast, married women were not treated under English law as independent economic entities, separate of their husbands. While on one hand, the husband was liable of any debts contracted before or during marriage by his wife,  he acquired, on the other, exclusive managerial rights over his wife's real property and Paraphernalia (jewelry, clothes) and was able to dispose of (sell, lease, rent or pawn) such things whilst he was alive. He also acquired full ownership rights (including inheritance rights) over his wife's other personal belongings and her earnings. In both cases, the law was retrospective in this regard, that is, it was applied to all of a wife's belongings, even those she acquired before marriage.

 

In terms of inheritance, however, married women did, at least notionally, enjoy some testamentary rights. If they owned any property before marriage they could, with the expressed written consent of their husband, indicate their future heirs. A mere verbal consent, however, could be revoked by another male heir after her husband's death.

 

Also, by means of a marital agreement,  a married woman could be entitled to secure property which would return to her in the event of her husband's death and determine a guaranteed minimum for her children, in case of her death.

 

Women generally inherited in the absence of male heirs. In this case, property was often equally divided amongst them, for example, between all of the sisters in a family. Whereas, in case of male heirs, unless specified in a will, the rules of primogeniture were applied and thus most or all property was inherited by the eldest son.

 

With the Married Women's Property Act (1870), married women acquired some rights over personal property such as the ownership of money earned separately from their husband. They also gained the right to control the rent over their real property and retain as much as £200 from inherited sums. 

 

In 1882, the Married Women's Property Act was extended, allowing wives to retain full ownership of any property they were entitled to before and after marriage. A long term campaign by members of the Married Women's Property Committee, with notable figures such as Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827-91) and Elizabeth Wolstenholme (1834-1913), was an important, albeit not exclusive, factor that led to the achievements of these cival liberties.

 

 

Widows were entitled to a "dowry", a share for life of her husband's estate, which usually amounted to one third of his real property, unless differently specified in the husband's will. For example, the husband could decide to leave it to his male heirs, including the financial wealth his wife brought to marriage.  In the Bevan's letter of 8 March 1849 we see Richard Bevan leaving a far greater interest top his wife and thereafter explaining his thinking about how this is fair to his family:

Another common practice was for the husband to leave his estates to a committee which would manage the land on this wife's behalf. Also, if widows remarried, they were legally entitled to protect the property acquired before their remarriage, usually by means of premarital settlements.