Head and Master laws

Head and Master laws

"Head and Master" laws were a set of American property laws that permitted a husband to have final say regarding all household decisions and jointly owned property without his wife's knowledge or consent, until 1979 when Louisiana became the final state to repeal them. Until then, the matter of who paid for property or whose name was on the deed had been irrelevant.

The law existed on the basis that the legal definition of marriage, during the period the laws were in effect, delegated the husband's role as supporting the family and the wife's as housekeeping, childrearing, and providing sex.

Historical example

In Louisiana, 1974, Joan Feenstra had her husband incarcerated for molesting their young daughter. To pay his lawyer, he mortgaged their home, which the law did not require his wife's knowledge or permission to do, despite the fact that the wife herself had fully paid for the house. Feenstra then dropped the charges, legally separated from her husband, and returned to court to challenge the constitutionality of the law. The Supreme Court invalidated the mortgage, concluding that the statute was, in fact, unconstitutional. [1]

References

  1. ^ Freeman, Jo. "The Revolution or Women in Law and Public Policy". http://www.jofreeman.com/lawandpolicy/revlaw.htm. 

Further reading


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