A wife is a woman in a marital relationship. A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until their marriage is legally dissolved with a divorce judgment. On the death of her partner, a wife is referred to as a widow. The rights and obligations of a wife to her partner and her status in the community and law vary between cultures and have varied over time.
Breach of promise is a common-law tort, abolished in many jurisdictions. It was also called breach of contract to marry, and the remedy awarded was known as heart balm.
Coverture was a legal doctrine in the English common law in which a married woman's legal existence was considered to be merged with that of her husband, so that she had no independent legal existence of her own. Upon marriage, coverture provided that a woman became a feme covert, whose legal rights and obligations were mostly subsumed by those of her husband. An unmarried woman, or feme sole, had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name.
Land law is the form of law that deals with the rights to use, alienate, or exclude others from land. In many jurisdictions, these kinds of property are referred to as real estate or real property, as distinct from personal property. Land use agreements, including renting, are an important intersection of property and contract law. Encumbrance on the land rights of one, such as an easement, may constitute the land rights of another. Mineral rights and water rights are closely linked, and often interrelated concepts.
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, Lady Stirling-Maxwell was an active English social reformer and author. She left her husband, who was accused by many of coercive behaviour, in 1836. Her husband then sued her close friend Lord Melbourne, then the Whig Prime Minister, for criminal conversation (adultery).
First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on securing women's right to vote. The term is often used synonymously with the kind of feminism espoused by the liberal women's rights movement with roots in the first wave, with organizations such as the International Alliance of Women and its affiliates. This feminist movement still focuses on equality from a mainly legal perspective.
As in other countries, feminism in the United Kingdom seeks to establish political, social, and economic equality for women. The history of feminism in Britain dates to the very beginnings of feminism itself, as many of the earliest feminist writers and activists—such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Barbara Bodichon, and Lydia Becker—were British.
The legal rights of women refers to the social and human rights of women. One of the first women's rights declarations was the Declaration of Sentiments. The dependent position of women in early law is proved by the evidence of most ancient systems.
In common law, a next friend is a person who represents another person who is under age, or, because of disability or otherwise, is unable to maintain a suit on his or her own behalf and who does not have a legal guardian. They are also known as litigation friends. When a relative who is next of kin acts as a next friend for a person, that person is sometimes instead described as the "natural guardian" of the person. A next friend has full power over the proceedings in the action as if he or she were an ordinary plaintiff, until a guardian or guardian ad litem is appointed in the case; but the next friend is entitled to present evidence only on the same basis as any other witness.
The Married Women's Property Act 1882 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that significantly altered English law regarding the property rights of married women, which besides other matters allowed married women to own and control property in their own right.
Mary Roy was an Indian educator and women's rights activist known for winning a Supreme Court lawsuit in 1986 against the gender biased inheritance law prevalent within the Syrian Malabar Nasrani community of Kerala. The judgement ensured equal rights for Syrian Christian women as with their male siblings in their ancestral property. Until then, her Syrian Christian community followed the provisions of the Travancore Succession Act of 1916 and the Cochin Succession Act, 1921, while elsewhere in India the same community followed the Indian Succession Act of 1925.
Tweddle v Atkinson[1861] EWHC J57 (QB), (1861) 1 B&S 393 is an English contract law case concerning the principle of privity of contract and consideration. Its panel of appeal judges reinforced that the doctrine of privity meant that only those who are party to an agreement may sue or be sued on it and established the principle that "consideration must flow from the promisee".
A movement to fight for women's right to vote in the United Kingdom finally succeeded through acts of Parliament in 1918 and 1928. It became a national movement in the Victorian era. Women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britain until the Reform Act 1832 and the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. In 1872 the fight for women's suffrage became a national movement with the formation of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and later the more influential National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). As well as in England, women's suffrage movements in Wales, Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom gained momentum. The movements shifted sentiments in favour of woman suffrage by 1906. It was at this point that the militant campaign began with the formation of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
The Married Women's Property Act 1870 was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that allowed married women to be the legal owners of the money they earned and to inherit property.
Jure uxoris describes a title of nobility used by a man because his wife holds the office or title suo jure. Similarly, the husband of an heiress could become the legal possessor of her lands. For example, married women in England and Wales were legally incapable of owning real estate until the Married Women's Property Act 1882.
Mary Lord nee Hyde was an English Australian woman who in the period 1855 to 1859 sued the Commissioners of the City of Sydney and won compensation for the sum of over £15,600 for the inundation of her property at Botany.
Feminism in Ireland has played a major role in shaping the legal and social position of women in present-day Ireland. The role of women has been influenced by numerous legal changes in the second part of the 20th century, especially in the 1970s.
In civil law jurisdictions, marital power was a doctrine in terms of which a wife was legally an incapax under the usufructory tutorship of her husband. The marital power included the power of the husband to administer both his wife's separate property and their community property. A wife was not able to leave a will, enter into a contract, or sue or be sued, in her own name or without the permission of her husband. It is very similar to the doctrine of coverture in the English common law, as well as to the Head and Master law property laws.
The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was based in New York City, the movement was created by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The Married Women's Property Acts are laws enacted by the individual states of the United States beginning in 1839, usually under that name and sometimes, especially when extending the provisions of a Married Women's Property Act, under names describing a specific provision, such as the Married Women's Earnings Act. The Married Women's Property Acts helped to rectify some of the difficulties that women faced under coverture, the English common law system that subsumed married women's ability to own property, wages, enter into contracts, and otherwise act autonomously, to their husband's authority. After New York passed its Married Women's Property Law in 1848, this law became the template for other states to grant married women the right to own property.
John Hooker (1816-1901) was an American lawyer, judge, and abolitionist as well as a reformer for women's rights. He married Isabella Beecher Hooker in 1841 and lived in Farmington and Hartford, Connecticut.
