Zoom Link
https://muw.zoom.us/j/94595746992
Department
History, Political Science, & Geography
Format of Presentation
Oral Presentation
Research Category
Humanities
Description
While Not known for progressive politics, Mississippi was a leader in Married Women’s Property Rights, passing the first law of the same title in 1839. Mississippi Women were then able to retain their own property after marriage. Prior to this law, the United States utilized a common law system that relegated women to a state of Coverture, which rendered women civilly dead. While there is debate about the extent to which this law should be understood to be a Women’s Rights initiative, it set the stage for an interesting series of events in Columbus. Laura Young Whitfield, an heir-at-law of a wealthy plantation owner, sought to sue her husband over her right to own and control her sole and separate property, the house now known as Baskerville Manor, after he sold it without her permission to cover the debt he incurred over the first decade of their marriage. Laura’s story details one way that the Married Women’s Property Rights Act was utilized by Mississippi Women in an attempt to retain their wealth in a system which upon birth gave them an inherent disadvantage.
Recommended Citation
Ellis, Margarete (Maggie), ""Sole and Separate": The Progression of Married Women's Property Rights in the State of Mississippi" (2022). Undergraduate Research Conference. 2.
https://athenacommons.muw.edu/urc/2022/humanities-ii/2
Included in
"Sole and Separate": The Progression of Married Women's Property Rights in the State of Mississippi
While Not known for progressive politics, Mississippi was a leader in Married Women’s Property Rights, passing the first law of the same title in 1839. Mississippi Women were then able to retain their own property after marriage. Prior to this law, the United States utilized a common law system that relegated women to a state of Coverture, which rendered women civilly dead. While there is debate about the extent to which this law should be understood to be a Women’s Rights initiative, it set the stage for an interesting series of events in Columbus. Laura Young Whitfield, an heir-at-law of a wealthy plantation owner, sought to sue her husband over her right to own and control her sole and separate property, the house now known as Baskerville Manor, after he sold it without her permission to cover the debt he incurred over the first decade of their marriage. Laura’s story details one way that the Married Women’s Property Rights Act was utilized by Mississippi Women in an attempt to retain their wealth in a system which upon birth gave them an inherent disadvantage.
https://athenacommons.muw.edu/urc/2022/humanities-ii/2