ABSTRACT
A former colony of Britain, the United States based women’s rights to property on a legal foundation drawn from English Common Law as well as equity law. Such concepts as coverture or feme sole were known in the American context. As the American legal system developed over time, at least two critical factors differentiated it from that of England and Wales. One was the introduction of legal ideas from elsewhere such as community property (a continental idea), and the second was that most financial and marital laws were established at the local and state not national level. Hence the history of American women’s relationship to money varied from state to state and the more sophisticated analyses tend to be case studies of the situation in particular states. As noted in the general introduction, much of the work on women and money has focused on women as wage-earning workers or on the unpaid labour of women as wives and mothers.1
In addition, in the American context, much has been written about women as consumers.2 There is a growing literature on married women’s right to own property, women’s ownership of business, and the possible relationship between the two. Far less has been written about American women’s engagement with other aspects of the economy, such as finance including banking, stocks, and other forms of investment.
