Head And Master Laws
"Head and Master" laws were a set of American property laws that permitted a husband to have final say regarding all household decisions and jointly owned property without his wife's knowledge or consent, until 1979 when Louisiana became the final state to repeal them. Until then, the matter of who paid for property or whose name was on the deed had been irrelevant.
The law existed on the basis that the legal definition of marriage, during the period the laws were in effect, delegated the husband's role as supporting the family and the wife's as housekeeping, childrearing, and providing sex.
Read more about Head And Master Laws: Historical Example
Famous quotes containing the words head and, head, master and/or laws:
“You go to my head and you linger like a haunting refrain.”
—Haven Gillespie (1898–1975)
“If in madness of delusion, anyone shall lift his parricidal hand against this blessed union ... the arms of thousands will be raised to save it, and the curse of millions will fall upon the head which may have plotted its destruction.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“[Women’s] apparent endorsement of male supremacy is ... a pathetic striving for self- respect, self-justification, and self-pardon. After fifteen hundred years of subjection to men, Western woman finds it almost unbearable to face the fact that she has been hoodwinked and enslaved by her inferiors—that the master is lesser than the slave.”
—Elizabeth Gould Davis (b. 1910)
“Sweet Cupid’s shafts, like destiny,
Doth causeless good or ill decree.
Desert is born out of his bow,
Reward upon his wing doth go.
What fools are they that have not known
That Love likes no laws but his own!”
—Fulke Greville (1554–1628)