6 - Women's realty

Summary

CONVEYANCES OF MARRIED WOMEN'S REAL PROPERTY

The conflict between the wish of women to manage their own property, and the wish of husbands to prevent them from doing so, led in the end to the formulation of a body of rules which can hardly be described as a juristic masterpiece. As things stood at the end of the thirteenth century, an unmarried woman of full age, or feme sole, could deal with her real property as freely as a man could. When a feme sole married, and thereby became a feme covert, she retained her rights to the property which she had held at the time of marriage, and also any which she acquired during the marriage, but lost her seisin and power to deal with or dispose of it, such seisin and power being vested solely in the husband. If she purported to dispose of her property by deed, the deed was void, not merely voidable, and the person to whom she alienated it would be liable for disseisin of the husband if he took possession. This was so even if the husband had consented to the deed or had confirmed it, because a void deed could not become valid by consent or confirmation. The husband, although by virtue of his seisin able to dispose of his wife's realty, could rightfully give a title which would be valid only for the duration of the marriage, unless issue was born to the husband and wife, in which case, by reason of what was called ‘the curtesy of England’, he could give a title which would be valid for his own life if he were to survive the wife.