Throughout my dissertation, I examined how English Property Law has continually acted as a patriarchal institution. For centuries, women have had to endure significant legal restrictions, limiting them from exercising the most mundane of property rights. Whilst such restrictions were most obviously present some centuries ago, the continued domination of these archaic views today means that women still face undue restrictions in relation to their property rights, undermining the notion of an egalitarian property law regime. Thus, in order to properly dissect such a history, my dissertation was split into 3 sections, each focusing upon a specific and significant period of English property law regulation.

Firstly, I reviewed the historic notions of Coverture and Wife Sales stemming from the C17^th. Coverture was, essentially, a doctrine whereby a single woman, feme sole, would become legally recognised as a feme covert upon marriage. With this status, a woman’s wages, inheritance, property owned before marriage, and even property expected to come into her possession after marriage, all became exclusively that of her husband. Furthermore, the feme covert also lost her identity, no longer existing as a legal individual but instead becoming subsumed under the identity of her husband. It was then, alongside this notion of Coverture, that ‘Wife Sales’ thrived. Historically, women were auctioned off by their partners due a wife’s legal status in Coverture restricting her from accessing the required rights to exit a marriage. The nature of such sales utilised symbolism to further embed a woman’s societal role as property, not person. Indeed, halters and cattle pens alike were involved in this monstrous demonstration of marital abuse, likening the women to cattle. Thus, this chapter inevitably highlighted the legal complexities in which women faced in regard to property rights, both in law and in society.

In Chapter two, I paid particular attention to the C19^th laws imposed as a result of the rise of the feminist movement and the hysteria surrounding the demand for legal reform. The laws analysed were the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882, and while each Act appeared advantageous in its approach, a patriarchal undertone nevertheless remained. Many male politicians believed that a husband’s proprietary control over his wife was an essential aspect of masculine status, thus being unwilling to ease property restrictions upon women. Bills which would have introduced extensive legal reformations were essentially destroyed by the House of Lords, with what was eventually passed being nothing more than a mere façade of optimistic advances. For example, the Act of 1870 gave women rights over their earnings, yet only those earnings gained after the Act came into force. Women were also finally able to legally have their investments registered as their personal property, yet this did not stop bankers from refusing to honour such investments. Furthermore, women also became liable to support their husbands, paying them maintenance loans much like those already being received by wives from their husbands. Yet, with women being restricted in education and employment opportunities, this equal obligation was ultimately meaningless. Unfortunately, the Act of 1882 offered little advancements either. The notion of a woman’s liability to pay maintenance to her husband was further inculcated in law, along with misogynistic denunciations of those minimal rights awarded to women still being heard both in politics and society. Indeed, upon analysis it is clear that the C19^th legal developments, of which were historically acclaimed as ground-breaking, where nothing more than underwhelming.

Thirdly, I examined property law enforced within contemporary society, and the continued existence of patriarchal undertones. Focus was placed upon the practice of mortgage lending and Common Intention Constructive Trusts. With regard to mortgage lending, despite numerous national and international laws prohibiting gendered bias within the economic areas of life, there remain habitual accounts of women being denied a mortgage, and thus the ability to purchase property, due to archaic presumptions of a woman’s societal role. Ideologies that women, once mothers, will stop working and stay home with their children has ultimately been found as the foundation for many mortgage rejections, as noticed by Hertz in a 2011 study, and despite a Government counter study in 2011, systemic gender discrimination remains demonstrated within the mortgage lending industry.

Common Intention Constructive Trusts then proceeded to be analysed. Such trusts are imposed upon a separated(ing) cohabiting couple, whereby the division of property is often based upon economic contributions towards the property itself, along with the detriment relied upon by each individual. On the surface, such a mechanism indeed appears neutral. However, failure of the courts to recognise the inequalities faced by women in other areas of life, such as the gender pay-gap, ultimately means that most women are unable to receive an equal share of a property, being unable to financially compete with their male counterpart. What is more, where a women then turns to non-financial contributions in order to receive a fair share of the property, such as domestic activities, she is often told that domesticity is expected of a woman per Lloyds Bank plc v Rosset. Thus, it appears as though a neutral law, paying no heed towards the gender of the cohabitants, nevertheless hinders men and women’s equal access to property, both through economic and non-economic routes.

Ultimately, my conclusions were that English property law has been, and remains, a patriarchal institution. Despite the drastic reform in which women have experienced, going from ‘property’ to ‘property owners’, the ideology of patriarchy has continued to loom in sub-text of each legal reform. Thus, an egalitarian property law is still yet to be achieved.

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