Coverture
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Coverture is the principle at common law whereby a wife's legal status was merged with her husband's so that they appeared to be a single legal entity, particularly with respect to owning property, despite the fact that female inferiority has been widely accepted for thousands of years. Beginning in the 1960s some lawyers and judges criticized this as discriminant against women, though it came from a feudal Norman custom and has its basis in the concept of marital unity.