Have wives ever been legally a man&#39;s property in the US? I'm studying A Level English literature at the moment and we are reading The Great Gatsby. I have a teacher who alluded that during the time the text was written, 1925, wives were considered to be a man's property. This raised red flags for me, as I know this may be true figuratively, but I want to know if that was legally the case ever in the United States, and particularly in 1925.
Not exactly, There were limited instances of the institution of wife selling in Britain in the early modern period, but this practice was never transferred to the United States and received as part of its common law. The institution of wife selling had been abolished long, long before the year 1925 in Britain and had never existed in the U.S., and was quite rare even when it had existed in Britain (where it functionally served as a poor man's alternative to divorce if a substitute husband could be located for an unfaithful or unwanted wife). Also, even in the early English common law, a marriage only arose with a woman's consent (sometimes implied from cohabitation or pregnancy in cases of common law marriage), even though de facto arranged marriages were common. While the wedding ceremony, in part, contemplated a notion that a father sold his daughter to the groom and at some times a father actually did have veto power over his children's marriage in England (causing many elopements to Scotland), the woman actually still had to consent in England, at least in principle, to the marriage. Married women did have greatly diminished legal rights, but they lacked important aspects of being property such as transferability. At common law, the legal status of a married woman was very different from that of an unmarried adult woman (a &quot;femme sole&quot;), and was more like that of a child, and the legal rights of men and women in marriage were, in general, very different. Phoog's answer is correct in identifying the doctrine of coverture and the suspension of the legal personality of the wife upon marriage as the dominant aspect of the differential treatment of women in marriage, but I will spell out in this answer the pervasive nature of the doctrine as applied since some of the practical consequences of this general idea are not obvious. In the most pure version of the traditional English common law, rules included the following: Upon marriage, all property of the married woman became property of her husband instead, which the husband had sole authority to manage. A wife's earnings were her husband's property and not her own. But, trusts could be established by third parties (often a father or uncle) for the benefit of a married woman that did not become a husband's property, and her blood relations would often give a woman gifts that in the case of personalty were not always in the full control of the husband. A married woman could not enter into binding contracts except for &quot;necessities&quot;, and could not enter into executory contracts (i.e. contracts to be performed in the future). There was no criminal liability for offenses other than murder committed by a husband against a wife or vice versa (e.g. rape and domestic violence of a husband directed at a wife was legal). A husband had a right to physically discipline his wife or to hire a third-party public official to do so on his behalf and many local governments had an official whose responsibilities included physically disciplining wives at a husband's request for a scheduled fee. Adultery was a crime and wives were generally the ones most likely to be prosecuted for it. A wife was legally obligated to maintain her domicile with her husband and could be legally compelled (with third-party assistance if necessary) to return to it. There was no civil liability between spouses who were one person under the law (i.e. spouses could not sue each other in court). This changed mostly in the mid-20th century. But, a husband was often held to civil liability for the acts of his wife to a similar extent to the liability he would have for the acts of his children or his dogs and livestock. Wive could not (and still cannot in most circumstances) testify against their husbands in court on any matter. A lawsuit of a wife against a third person would generally be brought by the husband either on her behalf or in cases such as personal injury suits for &quot;loss of consortium&quot; (a legal right of the man to companionship and service from his wife). Wives generally had no right to inherit from their own families (at least for real property, inheritance of personalty in early common law England was vested in the Church of England, another part of the common law not carried over to the U.S.), and spousal inheritance rights were governed by principles of curtsey and dower (often leaving a surviving spouse a life estate in property, rather than ownership of it). Women, in general, could not vote or run for public office or serve on juries or be drafted to serve in the military. In the early common law era, divorce could only be secured by legislation, not by a court. A wife could, however, apply to a court for &quot;separation from bed and board&quot; that would leave the marriage intact, but would allow her to live at a different domicile and to have her husband compelled to support her with what amounted to alimony. This was available on grounds comparable to early 20th century fault based divorce. Custody of children and full authority over them in the event of a dispute was generally vested in a husband. Children born during a marriage were conclusively presumed to be a husband's children even if this was highly implausible as a matter of fact, and children born outside of marriage were illegitimate and had no legal rights at all vis-a-vis their fathers. But, in most cases, a free adult femme sole (as opposed to an indentured servant or slave) had the same legal rights as a man. In practice, this was only viable for wealthy women or self-employed women as few forms of regular employment were available to women (most commonly entering into a relationship with an employer as a domestic servant which was a bit like indentured servitude except that the servant was paid money in addition to room and board, and had the right to quit). Also, a man could vest authority to manage the couple's estate in his wife, which would not be uncommon, particularly if the husband was away at war or on business. Not every U.S. state followed this regime in a pure manner, but a substantial part of this regime governing the rights of married women was adopted almost everywhere in the U.S. at some point (except for the states entering the union in the 20th century). This changed on a state by state basis, partially due to evolution of the common law, but in substantial part due to the passage of &quot;Married Women's Property Acts&quot; mostly in the 19th century. Remaining vestiges of this regime that were not changed legislatively by the 20th century were mostly later struck down by courts, often on 14th Amendment grounds, although removal of some of the criminal law immunities (the last of which was the marital rape exemption) was legislative and came in the later 20th century. The 19th century was also the time period during which legislative divorce was replaced on a state by state basis with court-granted fault-based divorce, which in turn was replaced on a state by state basis in the late 20th century and early 21st century (New York State was the last to adopt no-fault divorce). I have a teacher who alluded that during the time the text was written, 1925, wives were considered to be a man's property. This raised red flags for me, as I know this may be true figuratively but I want to know if that was legally the case ever in the United States, and particularly in 1925. In 1925, most U.S. states had passed Married Women's Property Acts (including the states featured in the Great Gatsby), and court-granted divorces on the basis of fault were available (although rare), but there were still many residual aspects of the early common law regime in place. Divorce was, in practice, hard to obtain and expensive. Adultery was a crime and marital rape was not. A husband was generally immune from criminal liability concerning a wife, although often this would be in the form of a privilege similar to the self-defense privilege for &quot;reasonable discipline of a wife&quot; similar to the exclusion today for reasonable discipline of children, rather than an absolute immunity from liability. Civil liability exemptions would have still existed. Many &quot;heart balm torts&quot; (which allowed civil remedies for adultery for example against the other man) would have been in existence (a few U.S. states still have them), which effectively gave a husband some &quot;property rights&quot; in his wife's fidelity that had to be observed by third parties. But, by 1925 many states were starting to legislatively repeal cause of action for &quot;heart balm&quot; torts. Inheritance laws would not have been gender neutral but would not have so decisively disfavored married women either. In divorces, the &quot;tender years doctrine&quot; which awarded children under 12 to wives and older children to husbands would have been in the process of development. Some of the presumptions about a husband's authority over a wife's property and a woman's obligation to share a domicile with her husband would have been widely understood even though the legal basis for this living law would have been eroding and it would be outrageous in that time period to use third-party physical force to compel a woman to return to a domicile or to discipline a wife. In short, while a wife was not a husband's property in 1925 and had many more legal rights than she did in the early common law era, a wife still had many legal disabilities at that point in time and in the living law in the minds of ordinary people, her rights were even more diminished than the relatively progressive legal rights that she had under relatively newly enacted legislation. The mindset of wives as property, while not strictly true, still have a residual influence and relevance in the form of residual legal disabilities of married women.
It is certainly true that different states who share a Head of State can have different succession rules. Thus William IV of the United Kingdom was also King of Hannover. The UK allowed female succession, so Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom; Hannover didn't, so he was succeeded by Ernest Augustus there. At the moment, all the Commonwealth Realms of which Elizabeth is Head of State have the same rules of succession. They all changed the rules regarding whether a first-born girl would be heir apparent together. They could decide to have different rules of succession, but they probably won't.
Yes The child owns what they own - it would be illegal for the parent to take the item and dispose of it or otherwise permanently keep if from the child (once they became an adult). However, parents are their children’s legal guardians and are responsible for the raising of their children including matters of discipline. It is both legal and appropriate for a parent to limit access of a child to their possessions.
This happened despite the fact that the marriage and Bible verses requirement were almost surely illegal and similar things have happened on and off, mostly in rural courts with non-attorney judges, for pretty much as long as the U.S. has been a country (and earlier). The trick is that the orders take effect unless someone appeals them, and since deals like this are usually a result of a plea bargain which waives rights to an appeal, and even if the result is simply imposed by the judge, one has to consider if taking the case up on appeal, having the sentence reversed, and then having it remanded to the same judge for resentencing would be worse from the perspective of the defendant, given the broad authority of a sentencing judge in a minor case like this one, than simply accepting the illegal sentence. Also, cases that aren't appealed never create precedents and aren't generally available among resources used by legal researchers, so they systemically evade documentation in easily available sources.
The "Crabs" game can be legal if it is seen as a form of parody. That is one of the forms of "fair use" that allows copying (within limits). This is to allow the use of limited amounts of copying for critical or "mocking" pieces, which are considered a form of free speech. Two other issues come into play under "fair use." The first is whether or not this is "commercial" (yes) or non-commercial (e.g educational) use. That is mildly negative for "Crabs" but by no means dispositive. The second is the likely market impact, whether the new use tends to compete with the old use in its "home" market, or whether it is likely to open a new market of a very different, perhaps "opposite" audience that might later buy the original as a "crossover." The "Crabs" game seems to address the "green" or at least "pro animal" (PETA) market. If the defendant can show that the "Cards" market addresses e..g., your "inner Nazi," making it "opposite," that would be ideal. It would be less convincing if "Cards" were addressing e.g. human rights, because that might be seen to overlap with the green market in terms of social conscience.
You certainly can't legally steal anything, ever. If it is legal, it is not stealing. In particular, if it is your property, it isn't stealing. The question is really, "is it your property"? This will be jurisdiction dependant. I am familiar with England and Wales, and other common law jurisdictions may be similar. The fact you co-signed for the car definitely does not make it your property. It just means that out of the goodness of your heart, you agreed to reduce the finance company's risk by promising to pay if your ex-friend didn't. In E&amp;W, I don't think it is possible to register a car jointly, but there is a long page explaining that the registered keeper is not necessarily the owner of the car. My guess is that the car probably does not belong to you, so if you take it you will probably end up with a conviction for theft.
The Louisiana Civil Code of 1870 (it was revised between 1868-1869, but enacted in 1870) applied specifically to civil cases (i.e. disputes between private parties); it's organized by topic area, and is there to keep people from having to comb through every law ever passed that has to do with civil cases. The Revised Statutes of 1870 gathered all the laws of "general character" into one place, for the same reason. The difference between the two was almost certainly an error. In general, there is one official version of the law; other versions are a convenience. The official version normally defaults to the individual laws passed by the legislature (which are organized by date, not by anything useful for finding relevant laws), but that can be changed by statute. In this case, the Revised Statutes contains section 3990, which says in so far as there may be any conflict between the provisions of this act and any provision of the said Revised Civil Code and Code of Practice, that said Code shall be held and taken as the law governing So, the Civil Code took precedence. Your revisions of 1876 and 1882 were not successor laws; rather, they were compilations of the Revised Statutes and Civil Code of 1870 with the amendments to those that had since been passed. The Revised Statutes from 1876 were really the Revised Statutes of 1870, modified by later laws (that didn't touch the divorce provisions). Likewise, the Civil Code from 1882 was really the Revised Civil Code of 1870, modified by later laws. The Civil Code of 1870 still took precedence over the Revised Statutes of 1870, so the divorce provisions of the Civil Code were authoritative.
This is unlawful sex discrimination In fact, its incredibly close to the example given on this website: A nightclub allows women in for free but you have to pay because you’re a man. This is unlawful discrimination because of your sex. How do they get away with it? Did you complain or report them? No? That’s how.