Under traditional English common law, an adult unmarried woman was considered to have the legal status of
feme sole, while a married woman had the status of
feme covert. These terms are English spellings of medieval
Anglo-Norman phrases (the modern standard French spellings would be
femme seule "single woman" and
femme couverte, literally "covered woman").
The principle of coverture was described in
William Blackstone's
Commentaries on the Laws of England in the late 18th century:
By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage. I speak not at present of the rights of property, but of such as are merely personal. For this reason, a man cannot grant any thing to his wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence; and to covenant with her, would be only to covenant with himself: and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife, when single, are voided by the intermarriage.
A
feme sole had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name, while a
feme covert was not recognized as having legal rights and obligations distinct from those of her husband in most respects. Instead, through marriage a woman's existence was incorporated into that of her husband, so that she had very few recognized individual rights of her own.
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