ABSTRACT
The effect of strict settlement on the portions of the younger sons and daughters is hotly disputed. Lloyd Bonfield argues that strict settlement provided greater security for the portions of younger sons and daughters, and so improved on previous practice. 'Separate estate', as it is known, has been studied in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, as well as in early modern England. It is also important as the basis of the late nineteenth-century reform of married women's property law in both England and America. Literary examples of separate estate or pin-money are less common than examples of strict settlement, and separate estate features as an object of derision, while strict settlement is presented as a fact of life. Both strict settlement and separate estate were important types of marriage settlements, but neither was what most people meant by a 'marriage settlement' in early modern England.
