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


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Master's degree — A master s is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.[1] Within the area studied, graduates are posited to… …   Wikipedia

  • Head of state — This article is about the political term. For other uses, see Head of state (disambiguation). A head of state is the individual that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of… …   Wikipedia

  • Business and Industry Review — ▪ 1999 Introduction Overview        Annual Average Rates of Growth of Manufacturing Output, 1980 97, Table Pattern of Output, 1994 97, Table Index Numbers of Production, Employment, and Productivity in Manufacturing Industries, Table (For Annual… …   Universalium

  • Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire — The following is a list of the notable characters in George R. R. Martin s A Song of Ice and Fire series of epic fantasy novels, belonging to one of the major aristocratic houses of fictional Westeros, and explains in detail what happens to these …   Wikipedia

  • Plato: aesthetics and psychology — Christopher Rowe Plato’s ideas about literature and art and about beauty (his ‘aesthetics’) are heavily influenced and in part actually determined by his ideas about the mind or soul (his ‘psychology’).1 It is therefore appropriate to deal with… …   History of philosophy

  • Anthropology and Archaeology — ▪ 2009 Introduction Anthropology       Among the key developments in 2008 in the field of physical anthropology was the discovery by a large interdisciplinary team of Spanish and American scientists in northern Spain of a partial mandible (lower… …   Universalium

  • Oliver Cromwell's head — A drawing of Oliver Cromwell s head on a spike from the late 18th century Following the death of Oliver Cromwell on 3 September 1658, he was given a public funeral at Westminster Abbey, equal to those of monarchs before him. After successfully… …   Wikipedia

  • Plato: ethics and politics — A.W.Price I Plato followed his teacher Socrates into ethics by way of a question that remained central in Greek thought: what is the relation between the virtues or excellences (aretai) of character, and happiness (eudaimonia)?1 Both concepts… …   History of philosophy

  • Whewell’s philosophy of science and ethics — Struan Jacobs ON SCIENCE Introduction Among the most prodigious of English minds of the nineteenth century, William Whewell (1794–1866) was at various times, and among other things, philosopher, intellectual historian, scientist, educationist,… …   History of philosophy

  • Hanged, drawn and quartered — The execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger, as depicted in the Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse To be hanged, drawn and quartered was from 1351 a penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, although the ritual was first recorded during… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”