Daisy's Blog

In England in the nineteenth century unmarried women had a great advantage over married ones.

They could deal with their property and inheritance as they wished, whereas married women were governed under English Common Law and lost all control over their property to their husbands, which meant that on marriage a woman’s husband could legally take possession of everything, unless he renounced to this privilege. Also, even if the wife inherited after her marriage the husband could still claim possession of it!

Women could still not vote, wives couldn’t make a will and for them to divorce their husbands was extremely difficult. In the case of divorce, a wife could not legally defend herself at all and could become completely destitute. The husband’s only obligation was, if he had the means, that she should not finish in the poorhouse!

If a wife wanted to divorce her husband, adultery was not sufficient to get a divorce unless her husband had also committed bigamy or cruelty or desertion or even incest! However, the husband only needed to prove his wife’s adultery to get a divorce!

Previously, any children born to a couple were considered the property of the husband and when there was a divorce or separation a wife risked never seeing her children again.

In Victorian England, things slowly started to change for wives. In 1836 there was the supremely important Caroline Norton case.

Caroline had been coerced into marrying her husband George Norton by her mother who had financial problems. She never loved him but they had three children together. Norton ill-treated her causing her to have a miscarriage. She sought her freedom, only to discover she had no rights at all. She was just a chattel!

In 1839, after Caroline had lobbied for changes in the law, women were at last permitted to have custody of their children under the age of seven and access to their children under sixteen (under the Infant Custody Act), provided they were of unblemished character. In 1857 women were given very limited possibilities to divorce, and in 1886 they could claim sole guardianship of their children if their husband died.

As to wives’ financial rights, in 1882 the Married Women’s Property Act said that they could now buy, sell and own property!

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