UDTR — Radar mondial des droits de la Nature

The impact of statehood and Republican politics on women's legal rights in West Virginia, 1863-1872.

Identification

Clé publique

doi:10.33915/etd.10613

Auteurs

Amanda Jean Ray

Année déclarée

2001

Langue déclarée

en

Type source

dissertation

Première détection

2026-11-09T19:04:47.756556+00:00

Dernière observation des métadonnées

2026-11-09T19:04:47.756556+00:00

Dernière vérification HTTP

Non effectuée

Institutions déclarées par la source

West Virginia University

Pays d’affiliation déclarés

US

Résumé documentaire — langue originale

While the nation debated the rights of citizenship and freedmen’s rights, legislators in the newly formed state of West Virginia instigated a legal revolution in women’s rights in the state. During the nineteenth century a married woman suffered “civil death” upon marriage in that she became the property of her husband. Thus, laws governing divorce, dower, and married women’s property held an unparalleled amount of control over a woman’s daily life. Oftentimes, issues of who could marry and remarry; who gained custody of minor children; who was entitled to alimony, maintenance, insurance, and curtesy; who had the ability to sue or be sued; and who had control of the woman’s wages and body all fell under either divorce, dower, or married women’s property laws. Therefore, divorce, dower, and married women’s property laws defined what rights a woman, especially a married woman, had. During their roughly ten years in power, the Republicans, who had gained control of the government during the statehood movement, liberalized divorce law, allotted to widowers the same one-third dower right that widows held, passed an insurance law which enabled wives to insure the lives of their husbands, put into place West Virginia’s first married women’s property law, and addressed the issue of woman’s suffrage on several occasions. The Republicans also addressed married women’s earnings under the new property law, and providing that wives who lived separately from their husbands could carry on business and collect their own wages as if they were single women. In making all of these changes in women’s legal rights, legislators instigated a legal revolution in women’s rights in the state.

Identifiants

OPENALEX

W7028997549

DOI

10.33915/etd.10613

Repères documentaires

Famille documentaire

Thèse

Types déclarés par les sources

dissertation

Les mentions d’entités ne constituent pas une preuve de reconnaissance juridique. La juridiction étudiée est distincte du pays d’affiliation des auteurs.

Sources

OpenAlex · Document 1 · Document 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.33915/etd.10613
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7028997549

Statut documentaire

Pertinence à examiner

Bibliothèque

Cette identité n’est pas encore intégrée à la Bibliothèque juridique.