58 NY 80 (1874)
Gilded Age women who wanted to pursue economic opportunities faced restrictive laws and paternalistic attitudes. In the 1874 case of Manhattan Brass, the Court of Appeals considered the right of married women to independently make contracts. At the time, New York law gave single women the right to enter into contracts but had largely preserved the common law disability that prevented married women from entering into contracts separately from their husbands. A divided Court of Appeals was clearly uncomfortable with the seemingly unjust result that flowed from upholding the wife’s legal disability in Manhattan Brass. Chief Judge Church’s majority opinion highlighted the need for legislative reform.
Mr. Thompson wanted to buy materials from the plaintiff to use in his business of manufacturing and selling atmospheric oil lamps, but his financial affairs were “under a cloud.” His wife, however, had a large separate estate and was in a position to pay for the goods. After inquiring into Mrs. Thompson’s ability to pay, the plaintiff agreed to sell her the goods on credit. Mrs. Thompson then signed a document stating that her husband was authorized to contract for her to buy the goods in question and that she would be responsible for fulfilling the contract. Mr. Thompson delivered the writing to the plaintiff who delivered the goods to the husband in return for a promissory note given by the wife to the plaintiff for the goods delivered.
Chief Judge Church’s opinion does not clarify why Mrs. Thompson failed to make good on her note. It does state that “[t]he facts developed at the trial and found by the referee, present a strong case of moral liability against the defendant for the payment of this debt.” Unfortunately, the majority of the court could not find a legal basis to hold Mrs. Thompson liable. “I have examined the case with some care, to find a principle within the adjudications which would justify a decision adjudging such liability, but have been unable to do it.” The Chief Judge noted that statutes enacted in the 1840s and 1860s had preserved the “general disability of married women to bind themselves by their contracts.” There was a common law exception to this disability where the contract was made for the benefit of the wife’s separate estate and the intent to charge the separate estate was expressed in the writing. But the case did not fall within that exception since the wife’s estate was not benefited by the contract. Rather, the business was carried on by the husband and not by the wife, and the goods, though sold to the wife, were delivered to the husband for his use and benefit.
The court’s hands were tied: “Is a married woman liable for property or money obtained upon her credit and contract, delivered or paid to the husband for his use, and which is used by him and not for the benefit of her estate? I think we are constrained to answer this question in the negative by previous adjudications.”
Chief Judge Church suggested that if the legislature had changed the law to give married women the same right to make contracts as unmarried women, “it might well be claimed that the rights of married women would have been as well if not better protected practically, sound public policy, and business morality more promoted, and a flood of expensive and vexatious litigation prevented.”
None of the three dissenting judges issued a written opinion expressing their views on the case.
It took another decade for the legislature to heed Chief Judge Church’s call, but eventually it passed the Married Women’s Property Act of 1884, a significant expansion of the legal and economic rights of married women.[i] The Act provided that “[a] married woman may contract to the same extent, with like effect and in the same form as if unmarried,” and it dealt a death blow to the English common law doctrine of “coverture,” whereby the legal rights of married women were subsumed and controlled by their husbands, including rights to own property, make contracts, sue or be sued and control one’s earnings.
The 1884 legislation built upon the Married Women’s Property Act of 1848, an important milestone in women’s legal history in New York and beyond. Passed largely through the efforts of reformers such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Act allowed married women to own property, keep their wages and have custody of their children.[ii] While the 1848 Act did not go so far as to allow married women to make contracts, it became a model for other states and an impetus for eliminating the historic inequalities of coverture.
[i] Kristin A. Mattiske, “Sanford Elias Church,” The Judges of the New York Court of Appeals, Rosenblatt, ed., at 144; Laws of 1884, ch. 381.
[ii] Jone Johnson Lewis, “Married Women Win Property Rights,” ThoughtCo, Jun. 25, 2024, available at thoughtco.com/1848-married-women-win-property-rights-3529577.