Women and Property: In Early Modern England [Paperback]

It has been a long recognised fact that life for women in the early modern period consisted of little more than enforced domestic slavery and legal incapacitation. It is necessary only to read of one of the most famous tenets of the common law at this time to invoke an image of oppressed and unfairly treated womanhood, for coverture - the legal loss of a wife's identity - meant that a woman effectively became her husband's property upon marriage. Parallel to such a law ran the prevailing ideology that 'woman' was a naturally inferior being to be treated on a par with idiots and convicts and who was therfore, rightfully denied legal and civil rights. This perception of women as victims is repudiated to some extent by Erickson, on the grounds that it is not a complete appraisal of the status of women of this period. By treading beyond the well-worn path of legal restrictions and social prescriptions that are traditionally associated with women from the late sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries, Erickson aims to show that in truth, practice often differed from theory.
This she does by studying how ordinary women managed property; how they inherited and maintained property, and how they disposed of it. This involves the examination of official records, in particular, probate records, which refer to the provision of wills, and of marriage settlements. Documents of both kinds demonstrate that women, despite the importance of primogeniture - the passing of wealth through the male line - often inherited property and that they could negotiate prenuptial settlements in order to maintain their interests after marriage. Erickson acknowledges that the different stages of a woman's life had different effects upon her legal status; for instance, an ordinary unmarried woman had basically the same legal rights as a man of her own social standing, whilst widowhood often meant financial stability and the reinstatement of legal powers lost in marriage. Thus, in many cases, women were able to manage affairs relating to their economic well-being, a state that must have effected to some extent, the social relations between men and women. Whilst many women were of course, dependent upon the good will of their husbands and fathers, the conclusions that Erickson draws from her sources support her view that women in general, maintained a social importance that belied their legal and civil status.
Women and Property in Early Modern England is a set reading for the Open University's MA in History, and won the Ellen McArthur Prize for economic history upon its publication. It could easily have been a dry tome, with its economics slant and reliance upon such dessicated sources as Chancery and Equity court records, but for Erickson's extremely readable style of writing. Antonia Fraser described it as 'extremely stimulating,' and although there was no room in this work to dilate upon the issue, I found Erickson's conclusion that the legal status of women actually declined in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a quite fascinating basis for future study. This book was also described as an 'impressive study' by Germaine Greer, and judging by the vast amount of end notes and the size of the bibliography, it is clear that Erickson knows her sources and that she has put a great deal of time, effort and expertise in presenting this book to students of history, economics and women's studies.