Beyond the Vote: Property, Education and Work

For much of the nineteenth century, under the legal doctrine of coverture in England and the United States, a married woman's legal identity was absorbed into her husband's: he controlled her property and earnings, and she could not usually sign contracts in her own name. Reformers attacked these laws piece by piece. New York's Married Women's Property Act of 1848 and Britain's Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882 gradually let wives own property and keep wages.

Education was another frontier: Oberlin College admitted women from 1837, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States in 1849, and women's colleges opened in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century. Opponents argued that such changes would undermine the family, while supporters argued that independence and education were matters of basic justice. These reforms mattered because economic and educational rights gave women the resources and confidence to demand political rights.