by Helena P. Schrader
Arguably, nothing is more indicative or determinative of women’s status in a society than their ability to hold and control property. In ancient Athens, women could not control property worth more than a bushel of wheat — and from the moment of birth they were denied the same food as their brothers, denied physical exercise, denied access to light and fresh air (by being imprisoned in the dark, back rooms of their houses), denied education, and then married at 12 or 13 to men three to four times their age, so they could die before the age of thirty from bearing on average 6 children, most of whom their husband discarded (particularly if they were female) because he couldn’t be bothered paying the cost of rearing them. In Sparta, in contrast, women controlled the estates of their husbands—and they were fed the same food as their brothers from birth onwards, engaged in physical exercise, received a public education, were married in the late teens to men roughly their same age, and generally lived long healthy lives. Today in the developing world, legal changes designed to guarantee women the right to own land has repeatedly proven one of the most effective ways to improve the status and economic condition of women.
For readers and writers of English historical fiction it is therefore advisable to understand two related but very different types of property associated with women in English common law: the dowry and the dower.
First, however, allow me to digress for a moment to discuss the position of heiresses. Please note that in England here were heiress (feminine), i.e. it was possible for women to inherit property and titles. This is not the case everywhere in the world even today. Second, heiresses were not dispossessed at marriage. Their husbands were expected to share in the control of their estates and the heiresses no longer controlled them exclusively, but they did not legally lose control or ownership. Women might, of course, “bow to their husbands' wishes” for the sake of domestic harmony or be otherwise coerced or cajoled into granting their husbandsr more control than was legally required, but stronger women knew how to keep their husbands in their place. Geoffrey d’Anjou never titled himself “King of England.” Eleanor of Aquitaine took the Aquitaine back when she divorced Louis VII. Joan, Countess of Kent, did not bestow the honor of Kent on any of her three husbands; she retained it and passed it to her sons. Heiresses, furthermore, were not found only in the aristocracy; peasant and merchant daughters also had the right to inherit their estates, provided they had no brothers. Indignation over the fact that boys inherited first should not blind us to the more important fact that because girls could inherit, some girls held very powerful positions indeed.
A dowry was not an inheritance. It was, however, property that a maiden took with her into her marriage. Anyone who has read Jane Austin’s books knows that young ladies generally had a greater or lesser “dowry” settled upon them and the size of that dowry greatly affected their value on the marriage market. A dowry, however, was never a girl’s property. It was property that her father/brother/guardian owned but agreed to transfer to a girl’s husband at her marriage. In the Middle Ages, dowries were usually land. Royal brides brought entire lordships into their marriage (e.g. the Vexin), but the lesser lords might bestow a manor or two on their daughters and the daughters of gentry might bring a mill or the like to their husbands. Even peasant girls might call a pasture or orchard their dowery. With time dowries were increasingly monetary, either a lump sum paid at the time of the marriage to the bridegroom or a fixed annual income paid by the bride’s guardian (or his estate) to the husband. The key thing to remember about dowries, however, is that they were not the property of the bride. They passed from her guardian to her husband.
Dowers on the other hand were women’s property. In the early Middle Ages, dowers were inalienable land bestowed on a wife at the time of her marriage. A woman owned and controlled her dower property, and she retained complete control of this property not only after her husband’s death, but even if her husband were to fall foul of the king, be attained for treason, and forfeit his own land and titles.
In the early Middle Ages, dowers were usually negotiated in advance of a marriage. Generally the father of the bride and the father of the groom would negotiate both the size and nature of the dowry and the dower at the same time. In short, the father of the bride would agree to transfer certain properties or a combination of properties and money to the groom at the marriage, and in exchange the father of the groom would designate properties as the new bride’s dower. These could, obviously, be identical. I.e. the father of the bride might agree to transfer certain properties to the bridegroom on the condition that they were designated his daughter’s dower, i.e. they were effectively transferred not to the control of the groom but to the bride after her marriage. Formally, however, the groom bestowed the “dower” on his wife at the church door immediately after marriage, and its size was variable.
In the absence of a formal agreement, however, English law came to recognize the right of every widow to one third of her late husband’s property. In this case, it fell to the husband’s lord (for barons, the crown) to determine exactly which pieces of property made up the dower portion after her husband’s death. Theoretically, the husband’s overlord was supposed to make this determination within forty days, but reality sometimes looked different. English judicial history is full of cases where tenacious widows litigated for decades to get their rights, an indication that justice was not always served rapidly, but also that women felt sufficiently protected by the law to take their case to court. The exception here was in the case of the widows of executed traitors. Whereas the older custom of designating the dower at the church door protected the widows of traitors, the idea that the dower was simply one third of a man’s estate at death meant that it was de-facto forfeited to the crown with the rest of a traitor’s lands, and his widow was left empty-handed.
This change in the nature of dowers may explain the increasing popularity of “jointures.” Jointures were not strictly women’s property as they were (as the name suggests) bestowed jointly on a couple at marriage. Nevertheless, the effect of jointures was to protect women financially. Property that was part of a jointure was controlled jointly so long as both partners lived, but became the sole property of the surviving partner at the death of the other. For men, that was nothing new, but for women it meant that in addition to the third of her husband’s estate that made up her dower portion, she had control of all her “jointure” lands. Furthermore, land held via “jointures” could not seized by the crown if either partner were convicted of treason; it remained the property of the survivor (usually the widow).
It was not uncommon in the High Middle Ages for women to successively marry two, three or even four husbands. After each marriage, the widow retained her dower and any jointures settled on her at the time of the marriage. Women who were politically well-connected, already wealthy and/or knew how to negotiate could therefore accumulate vast estates. “Dowagers” controlling these estates were not only wealthy and independent, they were influential and powerful -- at least within their family circles. They often controlled the income, marriages and dowries of their off-spring. One can imagine, they were not always popular but undoubtedly formidable!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Helena P. Schrader is the author of numerous works of history and historical fiction. She holds a PhD in History from the University of Hamburg. The three-part biographical novel of Balian d’Ibelin, who defended Jerusalem against Saladin in 1187, is now on sale. Knight of Jerusalem was awarded a B.R.A.G. medallion and was a finalist for the 2014 Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction. St. Louis' Knight was the winner of the 2014 Chaucer Award for Historical Fiction set in the High Middle Ages. Defender of Jerusalem is newly released. Read more at: http://defenderofjerusalem.com,
http://helenapschrader.com or follow Helena’s blogs: Schrader’s Historical Fiction and Defending the Crusader Kingdoms.
Arguably, nothing is more indicative or determinative of women’s status in a society than their ability to hold and control property. In ancient Athens, women could not control property worth more than a bushel of wheat — and from the moment of birth they were denied the same food as their brothers, denied physical exercise, denied access to light and fresh air (by being imprisoned in the dark, back rooms of their houses), denied education, and then married at 12 or 13 to men three to four times their age, so they could die before the age of thirty from bearing on average 6 children, most of whom their husband discarded (particularly if they were female) because he couldn’t be bothered paying the cost of rearing them. In Sparta, in contrast, women controlled the estates of their husbands—and they were fed the same food as their brothers from birth onwards, engaged in physical exercise, received a public education, were married in the late teens to men roughly their same age, and generally lived long healthy lives. Today in the developing world, legal changes designed to guarantee women the right to own land has repeatedly proven one of the most effective ways to improve the status and economic condition of women.
For readers and writers of English historical fiction it is therefore advisable to understand two related but very different types of property associated with women in English common law: the dowry and the dower.
First, however, allow me to digress for a moment to discuss the position of heiresses. Please note that in England here were heiress (feminine), i.e. it was possible for women to inherit property and titles. This is not the case everywhere in the world even today. Second, heiresses were not dispossessed at marriage. Their husbands were expected to share in the control of their estates and the heiresses no longer controlled them exclusively, but they did not legally lose control or ownership. Women might, of course, “bow to their husbands' wishes” for the sake of domestic harmony or be otherwise coerced or cajoled into granting their husbandsr more control than was legally required, but stronger women knew how to keep their husbands in their place. Geoffrey d’Anjou never titled himself “King of England.” Eleanor of Aquitaine took the Aquitaine back when she divorced Louis VII. Joan, Countess of Kent, did not bestow the honor of Kent on any of her three husbands; she retained it and passed it to her sons. Heiresses, furthermore, were not found only in the aristocracy; peasant and merchant daughters also had the right to inherit their estates, provided they had no brothers. Indignation over the fact that boys inherited first should not blind us to the more important fact that because girls could inherit, some girls held very powerful positions indeed.
A dowry was not an inheritance. It was, however, property that a maiden took with her into her marriage. Anyone who has read Jane Austin’s books knows that young ladies generally had a greater or lesser “dowry” settled upon them and the size of that dowry greatly affected their value on the marriage market. A dowry, however, was never a girl’s property. It was property that her father/brother/guardian owned but agreed to transfer to a girl’s husband at her marriage. In the Middle Ages, dowries were usually land. Royal brides brought entire lordships into their marriage (e.g. the Vexin), but the lesser lords might bestow a manor or two on their daughters and the daughters of gentry might bring a mill or the like to their husbands. Even peasant girls might call a pasture or orchard their dowery. With time dowries were increasingly monetary, either a lump sum paid at the time of the marriage to the bridegroom or a fixed annual income paid by the bride’s guardian (or his estate) to the husband. The key thing to remember about dowries, however, is that they were not the property of the bride. They passed from her guardian to her husband.
Dowers on the other hand were women’s property. In the early Middle Ages, dowers were inalienable land bestowed on a wife at the time of her marriage. A woman owned and controlled her dower property, and she retained complete control of this property not only after her husband’s death, but even if her husband were to fall foul of the king, be attained for treason, and forfeit his own land and titles.
In the early Middle Ages, dowers were usually negotiated in advance of a marriage. Generally the father of the bride and the father of the groom would negotiate both the size and nature of the dowry and the dower at the same time. In short, the father of the bride would agree to transfer certain properties or a combination of properties and money to the groom at the marriage, and in exchange the father of the groom would designate properties as the new bride’s dower. These could, obviously, be identical. I.e. the father of the bride might agree to transfer certain properties to the bridegroom on the condition that they were designated his daughter’s dower, i.e. they were effectively transferred not to the control of the groom but to the bride after her marriage. Formally, however, the groom bestowed the “dower” on his wife at the church door immediately after marriage, and its size was variable.
In the absence of a formal agreement, however, English law came to recognize the right of every widow to one third of her late husband’s property. In this case, it fell to the husband’s lord (for barons, the crown) to determine exactly which pieces of property made up the dower portion after her husband’s death. Theoretically, the husband’s overlord was supposed to make this determination within forty days, but reality sometimes looked different. English judicial history is full of cases where tenacious widows litigated for decades to get their rights, an indication that justice was not always served rapidly, but also that women felt sufficiently protected by the law to take their case to court. The exception here was in the case of the widows of executed traitors. Whereas the older custom of designating the dower at the church door protected the widows of traitors, the idea that the dower was simply one third of a man’s estate at death meant that it was de-facto forfeited to the crown with the rest of a traitor’s lands, and his widow was left empty-handed.
This change in the nature of dowers may explain the increasing popularity of “jointures.” Jointures were not strictly women’s property as they were (as the name suggests) bestowed jointly on a couple at marriage. Nevertheless, the effect of jointures was to protect women financially. Property that was part of a jointure was controlled jointly so long as both partners lived, but became the sole property of the surviving partner at the death of the other. For men, that was nothing new, but for women it meant that in addition to the third of her husband’s estate that made up her dower portion, she had control of all her “jointure” lands. Furthermore, land held via “jointures” could not seized by the crown if either partner were convicted of treason; it remained the property of the survivor (usually the widow).
It was not uncommon in the High Middle Ages for women to successively marry two, three or even four husbands. After each marriage, the widow retained her dower and any jointures settled on her at the time of the marriage. Women who were politically well-connected, already wealthy and/or knew how to negotiate could therefore accumulate vast estates. “Dowagers” controlling these estates were not only wealthy and independent, they were influential and powerful -- at least within their family circles. They often controlled the income, marriages and dowries of their off-spring. One can imagine, they were not always popular but undoubtedly formidable!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://helenapschrader.com or follow Helena’s blogs: Schrader’s Historical Fiction and Defending the Crusader Kingdoms.
Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post!
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere that as late as the early 1900s that an Englishwoman had to give up her citizenship when she married a Japanese man. I think it was in Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteI find this very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.
Helena can be counted on to educate and entertain in the same few sentences. I love this one.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great information. So good to have it. As I was reading, I recalled that before the Normans took over England and in Scotland, women had the ability to own land. Women's rights actually regressed under William I and his successors.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Linda! Thanks, All!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this! Thanks
ReplyDeleteThanks for an interesting article. One of the ways that William I used to acquire English lands was to marry English heiresses off to Norman men in order to keep their lands out of the hands of Englishmen.
ReplyDeleteWonderful to see an article on this subject. I have been looking (quite extensively) on Dower and Jointure myself, as part of my PhD work, and it really does demonstrate that Medieval women were not repressed chattels who had no rights. In fact, under English law and primigeniture, a daughter would in fact normally inherit before a 'collateral' male heir, such as a Nephew or Cousin. Estates and lands would only go to them if there were no children at all,
ReplyDeleteWhat also stands out in the English court records (which survive quite extensively) , is how often women exersized thier right to freedom of marriage sometimes in defiance of the wishes of their gaurdians or Lords. Often, they seem to have married whoever they wished, and just paid some sort of 'fine' to 'compensate' the gaurdian who had lost his (or her) 'right' to choose her partner. Few could really easily go against the church law that said a legally valid marriage had to be made with the free consent of both parties.