During the late 1800s, “coverture” prevented women from not only having basic, natural rights, but also caused them to lack self-respect and self-confidence. The literary definition of coverture is concealing or covering; thus, the legal doctrine of “coverture” stated that a woman’s legal and personal identity was encompassed and controlled by a man, whether it was her father, or her husband. This doctrine essentially allowed men in America to do whatever they wanted to their daughters or wives and control them in every way possible, leaving women to be “legally dead” in the eyes of society.
During the nineteenth century, women would suffer from their lack of autonomy; they lacked the right to vote, property rights (such as owning and managing their own property under their own name), and had restrictions regarding their jobs. For example, women were not able to pursue medicine or law, and the occupations that were open to women gave them less wages than what men would earn. Also, even though they had no property rights, they were required to pay property taxes, even though they were not represented regarding property. Finally, married women also faced an abundance of abuse from their husbands, such as getting beaten, being forced to perform in sexual acts with their husbands, even without consent, and also getting depleted of any self-confidence and respect.
However, there have been a lot of progressive movements and laws since the nineteenth century that have provided a better environment for women in America. Women have been provided their natural and civil rights over the years. For example, women earned property rights during the mid 1800s, were allowed to work during the late 1800s, and finally, were allowed to vote in 1920. As time went on, there have also been rights granted that kept the physical security of a woman intact such as allowing an abortion (until 2022), and states slowly declaring that violence against women was banned.
One of the most significant events in the history of women’s rights is the Seneca Conference and the Declaration of Sentiments. The Seneca Conference was a convention held by American women on July 19-20, 1848 in New York. During this conference, the women wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, which was essentially the Declaration of Independence, except it was a document that included and advocated for women to be allowed the same personal, social, economical, and political rights as men. For example, the main author, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, argued that men have restricted property rights for women, destroy their self-respect, and made women “civilly dead”: “He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she owns…He has endeavored…to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self respect…” These qualities were once a part of the coverture doctrine, and now, thanks to activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the ideal of legal coverture no longer exists.
