Build A Regency Reference Library: ‘Married Women’s Separate Property in England, 1660 – 1833’

Married Women’s Separate Property in England, 1660 – 1833 

by Susan Staves. 1990, Harvard University Press, 290 pages

Reviewed by Alice VonKannon

I really struck gold when I found this book. It was a topic that had always confused me, women’s property rights, but one you’ll get into in just about any Regency that touches on marriage contracts, widowhood, dowries or related subjects. And what Regency romance never touches on any of these?

 Yes, there’s some legalese in the writing, but it’s not unintelligible. The author jokes about this herself in the preface, that historians are not lawyers, and may have difficulty with some of the concepts. To illustrate this, she quotes from a Cambridge monograph on the subject: In attempting to explain the invalidity of a gift over of a remainder for the life of the tenant in tail in the conveyance of an entail, Coke argued that the remainder must be void.

Little wonder, as Staves says, that women of the period hated getting into the whole messy subject of their property settlement, and often, perhaps foolishly, left it to their father’s lawyers. You, however, don’t have to be a lawyer to understand it as explained in this book, though it’s not a popular history, and you may want to keep your dictionary at hand. Usually, with the avalanche of period money terms, from “pin money” to “jointure,” the author will explain the term before using it for the first time. And though you may wish to, it’s not really necessary to read the book in its entirety to get the info you need, since it’s arranged mostly by time period, and has an excellent index. Also, Ms. Staves often highlights attitudes from literature and plays of the period to make her point, making it more accessible.

It’s out of print, of course, which can be tougher when it’s an academic rather than a popular history. However, at the moment there are twenty-four copies of it on ABE Books, a good sign of general availability, and most are reasonably priced.

These are very confusing waters, choppy and changeable – what was true in 1780 might not be true at all in your story that takes place in 1812, and blithe blogs speaking in general can get it wrong. When I wrote a scene for my last book about dowry rights, with a character protecting a young girl from a potential intemperate husband, I felt much more confident having read this. A keeper.