Snort. Legally, women and children were property just the other day. Virginia didn't have a Married Women's Property Act until 1920. Until that law, all your property became your husband's when you married, unless your father's family had entailed it before it passed to you. (An entail keeps all the property in one family line. It's why the Bennett girls can't stay forever in their family home in Pride and Prejudice, for example.) Your wages were paid directly to your husband or father or whatever male was responsible for you, whether he was a drunkard or an idiot or the best guy in the world. (Dolley Madison lost Montpelier because, after James died, her drunken son spent up all the money to maintain the estate, for example.) When I bought my house, I titled it as purchased femme sole (by a single woman) so that, God forbid I ever get divorced, it's clearly my separate property, and not marital property, because I'm aware of the effects that stupid mindset still has on the legal system.

(I was blown away to realize I know people who were born before women had the vote, to put 1920 in context.)