H05061 MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY ACT 7/25/05 - HARDY FORUM ARCHIVES ____________________________________________________________________________
From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: Bathsheba
Date: July 25, 2005 1:18:01 AM PDT
Hardy was up-to-date too on the laws regarding female property ownership. I enclose an extract from my dissertation:
'As a single woman Bathsheba's position on the farm was secure, for 'unmarried women and widows enjoyed the same property rights as men (3 Hansard, CXCCI, 1361)' [1], but as a married woman, and as long as Troy was 'missing', she had no rights within the law, being regarded as her husband's property. There can be no doubt here that Hardy is making reference to the recently passed Married Women's Property Law, 1870, enabling married women to own property in their own right, a privilege Bathsheba would not have had for Hardy's setting predates the Bill.'
Jacky Wilkinson
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Bathsheba
Date: July 25, 2005 5:33:13 AM PDT
Another quickie- MWP Bill of 1870 gave women the right to possess their earnings. Many politicians were opposed to this because it was deemed fitting only to the working classes where the husband (according to the *Saturday Review*) would be drinking away all his wife's earnings. Hardy does a good job with this showing that the middle classes also squander the wife's earnings! Fortunately, Bathsheba is in control of her purse strings (as befits the following of the 1870 Bill) and Troy has to ask her for money.
One protest is worth quoting in this context.
To Millicent Fawcett Garrett (feminist), reporting on her lobbying activities for the passing of the 1870 Bill, one man responds:
"Am I to understand you, Ma'am, that if the Bill passes, and my wife have a matter of a hundred pound left to her, I should have to ask her for it?" (see my W&S, 177).
Best,
Rosemarie
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: 1870 Act & 1882.
Date: July 25, 2005 6:14:47 AM PDT
Jacky -- you are thinking of the 1882 Married Women's Property Act which gave married women the right to own property on a level with their unmarried compeers.
Cheers, Rosemarie
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: 1870 Act & 1882.
Date: July 25, 2005 6:40:40 AM PDT
No, Rosemarie, an act was first passed in 1870, indeed two acts were passed in 1870:
The first Act in 1870 gave a wife the right to keep her own earnings and the second Act in this year gave women the right to keep property they owned on marriage or had acquired later. http://web.ukonline.co.uk/m.gratton/19th%20Century/1882.htm
All the best,
Jacky
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: 1870 Act & 1882.
Date: July 25, 2005 7:29:11 AM PDT
Jacky --Bathsheba's property was inherited from her uncle -- see below:
After the 1880 General Election William Gladstone became Prime Minister of a government that promised legislation that would reduce the legal inequalities between men and women. One example of this was the passing of the 1882 Married Women's Property Act. Under the terms of the act married women had the same rights over their property as unmarried women. This act therefore allowed a married woman to retain ownership of property which she might have received as a gift from a parent. Before the 1882 Married Women's Property Act was passed this property would have automatically have become the property of the husband. The passing of the 1893 Married Women's Property Act completed this process. Married women now had full legal control of all the property of every kind which they owned at marriage or which they acquired after marriage either by inheritance or by their own earnings.
See
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wproperty.htm
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: 1870 Act & 1882.
Date: July 25, 2005 7:37:10 AM PDT
Jacky --I think I see where the problem lies. It lies in the rhetoric on the page you cite which says
The first Act in 1870 gave a wife the right to keep her own earnings and the second Act in this year gave women the right to keep property they owned on marriage or had acquired later
"This year" seems, rather clumsily, to refer to the header 1882. If you scroll down you'll see that it later says, "Women Born in This Year .." "This Year" refers to the header of 1882.
Good idea to check --? (see Bob Schweik's CAUTION" about e-texts)
Best,
Rosemarie
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: FW: Bathsheba
Date: July 25, 2005 7:50:08 AM PDT
Just another thought, for further info on the 1870 property Act see the whole of Lee Holcombe's article in Vicinus's The Widening Sphere pp.3-28
Jacky
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: 1870 Act & 1882.
Date: July 25, 2005 8:01:10 AM PDT
Particular quote from the source in Vicinus: 'So the married Women's property Act of 1870 [. . .] became law. In rewriting the common's measure the Lords had thrown out the phrase "her own property" referring to the property of a married woman and substituted for it the words "property held and settled to her for her own private use" or simply,, "her own property". [. . .] , By the provisions of the Act married women were to have as their "separate property" [. . .] property coming to them from the estates of persons deceased.' P. 20
Which I think means that, Bathsheba, living in a society before this act was passed would have forfeited her property to her husband. Or at least this is the way I interpret it. Evidently this Act was a forerunner to the 1882 Property Act.
So, as Bob Schweik recommends - I have checked.
All the best,
Jacky
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: 1870 Act & 1882.
Date: July 25, 2005 9:08:53 AM PDT
Jacky -- Here are some useful texts below (sorry if this is boring folks -- should soon end! ) which will clarify, I hope. One way a woman could (or usually her father, could) forestall her husband's appropriation of her real property prior to the Act of 1882 is by having a trust deed drawn up in her sole name. (eg "property held and settled to her for her own private use"). Inevitably this favoured the upper classes or those who could afford a lawyer. It doesn't look as if Uncle Everdene secured Bathsheba's property for her in this way given the dispute among his trustees about her inheritance.
But here is some further reading if you wish to pursue the question : Lee Holcombe's, "Victorian Wives and Property: Reform of the Married Woman's Property Law, 1857-1882 in Vicinus. Also very clear and helpful is the short paragraph on the topic in Phillip Mallett's "Victorian Society," *Marriage and Property,* ed Elizabeth Craik, Aberdeen University Press, 1984 159-191.
- hope this helps,
Best
Rosemarie
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: 1870 Act & 1882.
Date: July 25, 2005 9:42:19 AM PDT
But here is some further reading if you wish to pursue the question : Lee Holcombe's, "Victorian Wives and Property: Reform of the Married Woman's Property Law, 1857-1882 in Vicinus.
Sorry to keep batting on, but as you will see this is the very text from which I quoted in my last email, as this is the source from which I gained the information for my original quote in my diss. The point being made, if I understand this interpretation of the Act correctly, is that up until the 1870 Property Act a woman in Bathsheba's situation, having inherited property from her uncle, would not be permitted to retain rights to it on her marriage, for, as with all female property, the farm would have then be considered as part of her husband's estate. After the 1870 Act, however, or so the Vicinus extract reads to me, then a woman who was left a farm by a person deceased, would then have sole rights to that property, it would not become her husband's on marriage. Please do correct me if I am interpreting the Act erroneously, or maybe we are both saying the same thing only the wrong way round - after all, as my dear Dad would have said, 'I'm nobbut a larner!'
Best,
Jacky
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From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
Subject: RE: 1870 Act & 1882.
Date: July 25, 2005 9:55:34 AM PDT
The law in this area was complex enough, and counterbalanced by equitable constructs that made it possible for a married woman to control property as if she were a feme sole, one example having been given by Rosemary. Important to distinguish <law> from <equity> in this historical context. I would look at the sources Rosemary cited and possibly just talk to a legal historian. Might also consult Holdsworth's <History of English Law>. Generalizations involving English law are dangerous.
Chuck Anesi
charles.anesi@wellsfargo.com
office 480-575-3478
cell 612-940-3345
fax 480-575-3519
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: 1870 Act & 1882.
Date: July 25, 2005 10:11:27 AM PDT
Can we make this the final posting Jacky? This is going round in circles. I was simply correcting your misreading of the 1870 MWP Act and pointing you to the relevant Act in 1882. Otherwise we are back to Square One. There has been any dispute about Troy's legal ownership of Bathsheba's real property. She is, post the 1870 Act, entitled to keep her earnings only (the site you cited does point you to 1882-- but you misread it).
End of thread -- please ! (I will not be responding to any more emails -- I leave town in 5 minutes).
Best,
Rosemarie
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