Women and Property in
the Catskills
The Married Women's Property Act of 1848
From: Women of the Catskills by Richard Heppner
From: Women of the Catskills by Richard Heppner
Getting married in the 18th and 19th
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.
