Married Women's Property Act 1882

The Married Women's Property Act 1882 was legislation of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the property rights of married women in England, Wales and Ireland. It received royal assent on 18 August 1882 and came into force on 1 January 1883, going well beyond an earlier Married Women's Property Act of 1870 in the property rights it granted. Under the common law doctrine of coverture that had governed before it, a married woman's legal identity was absorbed into her husband's; the 1882 Act overturned this by allowing a wife to own, buy and sell property in her own right, to sue and be sued independently, to hold stock in her own name, and to be personally liable for her own debts. In doing so it required the law to treat husband and wife as two separate legal persons rather than as a single legal entity under the husband's control.