coverture

American  

[kuhv-er-cher] / ˈkʌv ər tʃər /

noun

1. a cover or covering; shelter; concealment.

2. Law. the status of a married woman considered as under the protection and authority of her husband.

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coverture British  

/ ˈkʌvətʃə /

noun

1. law the condition or status of a married woman considered as being under the protection and influence of her husband

2. rare shelter, concealment, or disguise

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Etymology

Origin of coverture

1175–1225; Middle English < Anglo-French, Old French. See covert, -ure

Example Sentences

"If you want to be cynical — there a lot of policies attacking women — the way it struck me, almost, was a kind of return to coverture," Zug said in a phone interview, referencing the colonial legal practice that held women had no legal identity of their own.

From Salon

Early American women were subject to laws steeped in coverture’s assumptions of gendered inequality, and these restrictions continued long after the United States won its independence from Britain.

From Salon

The state cited congressional debates over the 14th Amendment’s impact on coverture laws that denied women equal citizenship.

From Slate

The legal construction of marriage in the United States is modeled on coverture, the set of domestic laws imported from England by early colonists, which decreed that a married woman’s identity and existence was legally “covered” by her husband.

From Washington Post

The famous legal scholar William Blackstone had interpreted coverture rather strictly in the 1760s, and the American Revolution did nothing to change that.

From Washington Post