In this first comprehensive study of women's property rights in
early America, Marylynn Salmon discusses the effect of formal rules
of law on women's lives. By focusing on such areas such as
conveyancing, contracts, divorce, separate estates, and widows'
provisions, Salmon presents a full picture of women's legal rights
from 1750 to 1830.
Salmon shows that the law assumes women would remain dependent and
subservient after marriage. She documents the legal rights of women
prior to the Revolution and traces a gradual but steady extension
of the ability of wives to own and control property during the
decades following the Revolution. The forces of change in colonial
and early national law were various, but Salmon believes
ideological considerations were just as important as economic
ones.
Women did not all fare equally under the law. In this illuminating
survey of the jurisdictions of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New
York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, Salmon
shows regional variations in the law that affected women's
autonomous control over property. She demonstrates the importance
of understanding the effects of formal law on women' s lives in
order to analyze the wider social context of women's
experience.