Land, conveyancing reform and the problem of the married woman in colonial Australia

Golder, Hilary; Kirkby, Diane

doi:10.7765/9781526119704.00023

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“…Scholars in Australia have investigated the way in which the desire to make land transfers more straightforward led to the gradual erosion of dower rights and to laws allowing women to transfer land to their husbands. 47 This was less important for married businesswomen, who were more affected by laws passed to ameliorate the situation of deserted wives. These laws were influenced by the desire to maintain family stability and to ensure that these wives and their children did not become a burden on society.…”

Section: Deserted Wives and Legislationmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Your Money Is Not Your Own: Coverture and Married Women In Business in Colonial New South Wales

Bishop¹

2015

Law hist. rev.

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In 1860 and again in 1864, Alexander Spiers appeared before the insolvency court in Sydney, endeavoring to explain his failure in business. He was described as a milliner in the records but he had never made a bonnet in his life. The real milliner and businesswoman was his wife, Ann Spiers, who had been running her business since her marriage in 1846. She made purchasing and pricing decisions, managed staff, was the front person in the shop, and advertised in newspapers. She told the insolvency court in 1860 that her husband "used to keep the books and attend to the house business but he never sold anything in the shop. He used to mark the goods occasionally." Alexander Spiers similarly distanced himself. "My wife put the value upon the articles in our stock," he said. "She is much better acquainted with their value than myself." In spite of this, it was Alexander Spiers' name that was on the insolvency papers. Under the law of coverture, he was responsible for his wife's debts and her business legally belonged to him. 1 Ann Spiers is one of many married women who conducted businesses in nineteenth century Sydney in New South Wales (NSW), and across the Anglophone world, in spite of their legal disabilities. 2 Taking a stroll down Pitt Street, one of the principal streets in Sydney in 1858, a visitor would have encountered Mrs. White the fruiterer, Mrs. Robson the milliner, and Mrs. Doak the straw bonnet maker. There was Mrs. Stitt at her baby linen warehouse; Mrs. Foans, Mrs. Cowell, and Mrs. Palmer in their hotels; neighbours and drapers, Mrs. Tuting and Mrs. Farmer; two more milliners, Mrs. Bynon and Mrs. Stone; the French teacher Madame Dutruc; Mrs. Stephens in her circulating library; and Mrs. Atkins, monthly nurse. 3This period in the British world has been seen as the apogee of the Victorian ideology of female domesticity, with its separation of public and private. 4 Women were regarded as doyennes of home and hearth, supportive of, but subordinate to, their breadwinning husbands. Going into business is often depicted as having been the last resort for a desperate spinster or widow, devoid of male financial support; but many women in business, such as those mentioned above, were wives and mothers. These women were running businesses; but legally, as shown in the example of Ann and Alexander Spiers, those businesses did not belong to them. The money they made was not their own.The Victorian ideology of domesticity was underpinned by a legal system that dictated that wives were under the protection or "cover" of their husbands. The law of coverture ensured that "by marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law, and that one is the husband." 5 Husbands were deemed responsible for the maintenance of their wives, and controlled any property or income that their wives owned. Wives could not sue or be sued in court apart from their husbands, could not enter into contracts or go into debt independently, and were regarded as acting as their husbands' 2. Recent international scholarship has uncovered their p...

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Section: Deserted Wives and Legislationmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Your Money Is Not Your Own: Coverture and Married Women In Business in Colonial New South Wales

Bishop¹

2015

Law hist. rev.

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show abstract

Land, conveyancing reform and the problem of the married woman in colonial Australia

Cited by 1 publication

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When Your Money Is Not Your Own: Coverture and Married Women In Business in Colonial New South Wales

When Your Money Is Not Your Own: Coverture and Married Women In Business in Colonial New South Wales

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