Baron and Feme.
[Legal issues]. (Anonymous) Baron and Feme. A treatise on the common law concerning husbands and wives. The second edition, with large additions. [London:] Savoy: Printed…for John Walthoe, in the Middle Temple Cloysters, 1719.
8vo.; contemporary calf; endpapers and blanks darkened.
Second edition of the first 18th-century treatise of the English law of women and only the second of its kind; enlarged by over forty pages of new text not printed in the first edition of 1700. OCLC locates six copies of the first edition, only one of this second. Kanner, in The Women Of England, notes that this work and The Laws Resolutions Of Womens Rights (1632) “may have stated what was in fact the law, but reality was quite different. Though women were subject to their husbands, the examples of those who managed their own affairs tempt one to think of them as more than exceptions. Women did leave property…Wives could act as executrices of wills, but to what extent they did so or how successful they were remains unknown.” The lengthy subtitle describes the contents of this volume:
Wherein is contained the natures of the Feme Covert, and of marriages, bastardy, the privileges of Feme Coverts: What alterations are made by marriage as to estates, leases, goods and actions.
What things of the wife accrue to the husband by the intermarriage, or not.
What acts, charges, forfeitures by the husband, shall bind the wife after his death, or not.
Of jointures and pleadings, fines and recovery, conveyances, and other law titles relating to Baron and Feme.
Of wills, and Feme Covert being executrix.
Of the wife’s separate disposition and maintenance.
What amounts to the disposition of the wife’s term by the husband.
Of actions brought by or against Baron and Feme.
What actions done, or contracts made by the wife, shall bind her husband.
Of indictments and informations against them.
Of Baron and Feme’s joinder in action.
Of a Feme sole merchant.
Declarations and pleas, &c. of divorces, &c.
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