ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with material things – namely, a woman's personal items of worth – and her subsequent right to own these items within a marital union in early modern Scotland. It reveals how wives in Scotland legally retained the right to pawn, sell and bequeath their paraphernalia separately from their marital estate in Scotland, with husbands possessing little to no right to own, sell or even administer such moveable assets during and after their marriage. Although the legal term 'paraphernalia' was chiefly used to signify a woman's right to maintain wearing apparel and jewellery upon marriage, the term generated a variety of definitions, with much ambiguity surrounding which objects could be specifically regarded as exclusive to a wife's body. Historical research commenting on the nature and extent of such material goods has tended to focus on early modern England, with a wife's paraphernalia defined as consisting of 'her clothes, jewels, bed linens and plate'.
