A Treatise on the Legal and Equitable Rights of Married Women...
Documenting a Jurisprudential Revolution: Cord's Landmark Treatise on Equitable Rights (1861) Cord, William H. A Treatise on the Legal and Equitable Rights of Married Women: As Well as in Respect to Their Property and Persons as to Their Children. With an Appendix of the Recent American Statutes and the Decisions Under Them. Philadelphia: Kay & Brother, 1861. xxvi, 796 pp. Octavo (9-1/4" x 5-3/4"). Original law calf with blind rules to boards and blind tooling to board edges. Spine features red and black leather gilt-lettered labels. Binding shows light rubbing, scattered nicks, and minor scuffing; "gatoring" to spine leather and a small chip at the head. Front joint partially cracked but holding; corners bumped with light wear; hinges starting. Internally, a light uniform toning with occasional foxing. Early embossed owner stamp of "D.S. Duvall" on the front board and matching signature ("D.S. Duvall / New York City") at the head of the title page. A very good, unsophisticated copy. $450. * First edition. This work represents the first major American treatise on the legal rights of married women to be published following the landmark 1846 second edition of Tapping Reeve's The Law of Baron and Femme. Appearing on the eve of the Civil War, Cord's treatise is a vital primary record of the "Married Women's Property Acts" era. Between 1844 and 1860, twenty-one states fundamentally altered the common law doctrine of coverture-the legal status where a woman's legal identity was subsumed by her husband-by enacting statutes that granted women individual rights to own property, enter contracts, and claim guardianship of children. Cord meticulously documents these legislative gains, making this a cornerstone text for the study of 19th-century American jurisprudence and the evolution of women's rights. Catalogue of the Library of the Harvard Law School (1909) I:467.
Price: $450.00
Book number 81182