Coverture


Definition of Coverture

The term coverture refers to the time period of the marriage for a woman and represents old-fashioned legal rules and law for a woman during her marriage. Under these laws and regulations, wives don’t have a separate status from their counterparts (husbands) and couldn’t file lawsuits, control their own property, etc.



Coverture Explained

Under coverture, a woman can’t execute contracts. Married women started receiving more legal rights in 1800s. Mississippi became the first state to give married women more legal rights in the year 1839. In 1848, New York introduced Married Women’s Statute which limited coverture in many ways.