Tag Archives: coverture

To Love, Honor and OBEY in Jane Austen’s World

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Though nearly all of Jane Austen’s works end with a love match and a wedding, she does not represent the prevailing attitudes about love and marriage of the day. What did regency marriages look like? Marrying for Love was Unlikely While love might have been on the minds of regency era couples, they generally expected it to come AFTER marriage (if at all), rather than before.  For most, practical considerations were the backbone of most … Continue reading →

Marriage and Coverture in Jane Austen’s World

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It’s hard to believe how different women’s lives were in Austen’s day. Marriage and coverture, a legal concept, effectively took away her personhood. The Concept of Coverture In 1765, William Blackstone presented a common man’s language interpretation of English law. He explained the law’s approach to women’s legal existence and rights in marriage which remained largely unchanged until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1884. Blackstone said: By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the … Continue reading →