Hacker News Reader

Comment by DaniFong | Hacker News Reader

That's a pretty warped depiction of 'the feminist narrative,' and in any case exceptions don't make the rule.

In California, in the 1850's, for example, it was determined that any property of a married woman's was legally the property of her husband. Therefore the hundreds of entrepreneurial and successful women land or business owners were suddenly rendered legally and financially dependent on their husbands. Only single women and widowers could hold property.

In case you're ever interested in investigating your assumptions about man's evolutionary nature, I highly suggest you read Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography.

View on HN

The copy of "The Age of Gold" by H.W. Brands sitting in front of me says you are wrong about married women's property in 1850's California. From the soft cover, pg. 283, regarding the constitutional convention held in Monterey in 1849:

`A proposal to permit women to keep control of their property upon marrying led to discussion of the relative merits of the common-law and civil-law traditions. "I am not wedded either to the common law or the civil law", observed Halleck, "nor, as yet, to a woman; but having some hopes that some time or other I may be wedded, and wishing to avoid the fate of my friend from San Francisco [a crotchety old misogynist], I shall advocate this section in the constitution, and I would call upon all the bachelors in this convention to vote for it." Enough did to win the measure's approval.`

So unless there was a constitutional amendment created a few years after the constitution itself that I'm not aware of, married women actually were allowed to keep their property in California. Indeed, the text from the original 1849 constitution states, in part:

`Sec. 14. All property, both real and personal, of the wife, owned or claimed by marriage, and that acquired afterwards by gift, devise, or descent, shall be her separate property; and laws shall be passed more clearly defining the rights of the wife, in relation as well to her separate property as to that held in common with her husband. Laws shall also be passed providing for the registration of the wife's separate property.`

I'm not an expert in the area: my reference is an old copy of the SF Argonaut I found in the doctor's office. There it said that the majority of independently wealthy women in the early days of San Francisco were single or widowed, and the 1850's were the timeline they gave. However, I may have confused it as the point at which married women could enter into business under their own name. I did a little more digging.

The Legislative Act entitled "Act To Authorize Married Women To Transact Business In Their Own Name, As Sole Traders," was passed into law by the California State Legislature on April 12, 1852. California State Printing Office Index to the Laws of California, i850-1920 (Sacramento, 1921).

Subject to some restrictions - only married California women-not single, widowed, or divorced women-were required to publicly declare their commercial intentions and to limit their investment to $5,000 or less. Some argue that such restrictions limited women's personal, financial, and commercial freedom and, as such, underscored their dependent legal status.

In any case, the laws of California were rather advanced compared to the common law, and advanced compared to other states.

How is my view "warped" when nothing you said contradicts it. What I said was that women initially chose the role of home maker and then it became their accepted role and that was a problem. I specifically said...

"They became the original feminists and rightfully won the ability to do whatever they want."

The reason I brought up the feminist narrative is because the lie of "women were never in power" allows them to claim women would never choose to be a housewife which in turn allows them to claim it's somehow an inferior way to live one's life.

As for the book, I will check it out. But there is a view of male nature accepted by the majority of the scientific community and that's what I was quoting.

Actually, in the west, title held by a married woman in her name was considered her own property. Property held by the husband was considered to be marital property. If the property was deeded to the "Husband and Wife", the wife's interest was the her 1/2 interest via the deed "and Wife", plus the marital interest held by the husband. This was called the Married Woman's Presumption; it was abolished in 1975.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com