The women's life in colonial and early America is called coverture. Coverture gave all the rights of women in the hands of men. When a women was born she had no rights, was not allowed to hold property, and of course was not allowed to vote. Her father would make all the decisions in her life. She was trained to become a housewife. When she was married off, all her rights were transfered to her husband, and still once again she had no rights. This system was put into place to protect women from "the hardships of life." Women were viewed as not capable of dealing with responsibilities and difficulties that life had outside the home.
If the husband died, all land owned by the couple was now in the possession of the women. She would still have to pay off and debts she had to any one else--but if someone owed her--if that person didn't want to pay, there was nothing she could do. Women during this time had no standing in the courts so they could not take their debtors to courts. In order to keep from going broke, they would have to marry again (the father probably would not take her back in). In the new marriage all her land would go to the new husband.
I just heard a story of a modern day family. The woman was married to a man and had one son. Her husband died. In this case she did not remarry but her son was of age to take care of her. Instead of being on her own, she depended a lot on the on her son after she became a widow.
Coverture may not be the way the womens lives are not run now, but the idea is still ingrained in us. It has been more than 200 years since coverture was the way of life, but the theme is still around today. Families are still based around th idea of coverture. It may not be the law, but families still function in that way. Women tend to gravitate toward the men in their lives for protection, as it was back in time when coverture was prevalent. Many things have changed in our culture, but for the most part they just take on a different form.
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