The Full Story
Under English common law, a married woman had no legal existence separate from her husband. Everything she owned became his upon marriage. Her wages were his. Her inheritance was his. She couldn't sign contracts, make a will, or sue in her own name.
This was 'coverture', the legal fiction that husband and wife were one person, and that person was the husband.
Campaigners fought for decades to change this. The Married Women's Property Committee, led by women like Barbara Bodichon and Elizabeth Wolstenholme, organised petitions and lobbied Parliament.
There was one exception: wealthy families could shelter a daughter's property in equity trusts, beyond her husband's reach. The rich could buy their way out of coverture. Everyone else lived under it.
Progress was slow. The 1870 Married Women's Property Act let married women keep their own wages and earnings, and certain investments and legacies. But it wasn't until the 1882 Act, in force from 1 January 1883, that married women gained the right to own, buy, sell and bequeath property of all kinds as their separate property, as if unmarried.
The change was revolutionary. A married woman's earnings and property were at last her own in law, whatever her family's wealth. Women could leave abusive husbands without losing everything. They could build independent lives.
Every woman who owns a house, has a bank account, or controls her own wages benefits from this hard-won right.
Why This Matters
The Married Women's Property Act ended legal coverture and gave women economic independence. It was a foundation stone of women's rights.