Women and Property in the Catskills - 1848

Women and Property in the Catskills

The Married Women's Property Act of 1848
 From:Women of the Catskills by Richard Heppner

Getting married in the 18^th and 19^th century Catskills was, simply, something a woman was expected to do. Once entered into the wonderful state of matrimony, however, married women had no legal standing in New York. If she had owned property prior to her marriage, she no longer did - once she said, “I do.” Nor could she sell property she once owned, transfer that property, enter into any legal contract or even keep whatever wages she might earn through her own hands and brains. 

In 1848, though the right to vote was still more than a half-century in the future, the tide of legal rights for women began to change with the passage, in New York, of the first Married Woman's Property Act. In addition to becoming a model for other states in the years leading up to the twentieth century, one of the more practical aspects of the actions by the New York State Legislature in 1848 was permitting a woman to own property and dispense with it as she saw fit - without interference from her husband, a step towards economic independence. 

The Married Women's Property Act of 1848 reads as follows: 

An act for the more effectual protection of the property of married women:

§1. The real property of any female who may hereafter marry, and which she shall own at the time of marriage, and the rents, issues, and profits thereof, shall not be subject to the sole disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts, and shall continue her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female.

§2. The real and personal property, and the rents, issues, and profits thereof, of any female now married, shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband; but shall be her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female, except so far as the same may be liable for the debts of her husband heretofore contracted.

§3. Any married female may take by inheritance, or by gift, grant, devise, or bequest, from any person other than her husband, and hold to her sole and separate use, and convey and devise real and personal property, and any interest or estate therein, and the rents, issues, and profits thereof, in the same manner and with like effect as if she were unmarried, and the same shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband nor be liable for his debts.