tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18027804.post115801992582744177..comments2023-10-17T04:15:35.804-04:00Comments on The Ratttler: COLONIAL VIRGINIA1775Facetious Musehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07140409354466938422noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18027804.post-1158192958709140612006-09-13T20:15:00.000-04:002006-09-13T20:15:00.000-04:00During the early history of the United States, a m...During the early history of the United States, a man virtually owned his wife and children as he did his material possessions. If a poor man chose to send his children to the poorhouse, the mother was legally defenseless to object. Some communities, however, modified the common law to allow women to act as lawyers in the courts, to sue for property, and to own property in their own names <B>if their husbands agreed.</B><BR/><BR/>Equity law, which developed in England, emphasized the principle of equal rights rather than tradition. Equity law had a liberalizing effect upon the legal rights of women in the United States. For instance, a woman could sue her husband. Mississippi in 1839, followed by New York in 1848 and Massachusetts in 1854, passed laws allowing married women to own property separate from their husbands. <B>In divorce law, however, generally the divorced husband kept legal control of both children and property.</B><BR/><BR/>In the 19th century, women began working outside their homes in large numbers, notably in textile mills and garment shops. In poorly ventilated, crowded rooms women (and children) worked for as long as 12 hours a day.<B> Great Britain passed a ten-hour-day law for women and children in 1847, but in the United States it was not until the 1910s </B>that the states began to pass legislation limiting working hours and improving working conditions of women and children.FRisson1https://www.blogger.com/profile/15930830611380242090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18027804.post-1158024968843654292006-09-11T21:36:00.000-04:002006-09-11T21:36:00.000-04:00http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx...http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=2651WFGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10892786804092675170noreply@blogger.com