As with many things the History of the UK and the USA are quite different. The national vote was pretty restricted by age, sex and property. And this continued to the reform at the end of WW1. When sex and property ceased to be qualifications. Age remained of course. In fact changes in "local government" happened much earlier partly because the ballooning population meant many reforms were needed to what was still a medieval system.
I had always thought that women weren't prohibited from voting in the UK until coverture in the 1830s. Even under coverture, I believe, unmarried women could still own property and do most things men could--I'm not sure about voting.
Karen Straughan had a lot to say about coverture but I can never find any of it because she's made so much content and she's fond of cute titles that really don't tell you much about what's in the blog or video.
Strangely the explicit exclusion of women voting was a result of the 1831 reform act which was the first to say "Male persons" over 21 and with sufficient property. Prior to that some wealthy women had voted. The reform act was about the national elections and the more complex nature of the local council electorate is shown by such as this "There is a poll book from 1843 that clearly shows thirty women's names among those who voted. These women were playing an active role in the election. On the roll, the wealthiest female elector was Grace Brown, a butcher. Due to the high rates that she paid, Grace Brown was entitled to four votes" as you can see women did vote and like men greater wealth (taxable) meant you got more votes! The 1869 more explicitly gave the franchise to single women, widows or indeed divorcees with property. This was then extended to married women whose husbands taxable wealth was counted. As you can see in the UK the key was paying tax on property. Thus prior to the 1918 act 40% of "Male persons" over 21 could not vote because they were not paying a property tax. Of course this means a much higher % of the soldiers in WW1 couldn't have voted because the bulk of volunteers and later conscripted "men" were not 21. One great uncle was in the high seas fleet fighting the U boat menace at 16 and another was fighting in the middle east at 17.
Coverture is interesting because this seems to have been much more prominent in the US . In the UK ( and remembering Scotland and Ireland had separate legal systems) certainly women from aristocratic and gentry appear not to have their inheritance just lumped in with their husband. Indeed where the wife's family was more prestigious the husband took the name of his wife's in order to ensure their progeny would inherit the more illustrious name and hopefully some property. This happened in two of the local "county" families in the 19th century and I'm sure it was equally as common in the rest of the country. Of course no one gave any thought about the vast majority of tte population who had nothing and the relatively sudden huge expansion of the bourgeoisie, whose wealth was not in land probably pushed the legal presumptions hard.
As I recall, in the podcast of Karen's I can no longer find, she said that, under coverture, women could have money of their own but all of a man's wealth was community property. Men were responsible for the support of the family but women were not. She also explained that married women couldn't get credit or sign contracts simply because their husbands, alone, would assume all responsibility for their debts and contractual obligations and they would have none.
In this country (England) the thing about male relatives being guarantors was introduced following campaigns ( Dickens being very prominent) to end the "horror" of being imprisoned for debt. It ended that possibility by requiring a male relative to be the responsible person. Prior to this new "enlightened" law even quite aristorcatic ladies had had found themselves incarcerated just like debtor men. This of course was in a society where going to prison for non payment of debts was a regular thing. In a sense the feminists are right, during the Victorian era the push to protect ladies from any nastiness did indeed remove their responsibilities. These statutes were quite short lived as here they mainly disapeared in the 1960s.
I don't think a prison sentence for unpaid debt in necessarily a bad thing. People often rack up debt with no intention of paying, which is tantamount to theft.
Currently, in the US, I often see and hear arguments regarding credit scores being cruel and unusual punishments that are 'targetted' at oppressing women and minorities. The idea, here too, is that everyone is entitled to freely borrow money (because everyone deserves whatever they feel they need or want) and it has to be paid for by those who can afford to pay. In this instance, it's a broadly applied progressive tax system but, as we all know, white males would overwhelmingly bear the brunt of it.
As with many things the History of the UK and the USA are quite different. The national vote was pretty restricted by age, sex and property. And this continued to the reform at the end of WW1. When sex and property ceased to be qualifications. Age remained of course. In fact changes in "local government" happened much earlier partly because the ballooning population meant many reforms were needed to what was still a medieval system.
I had always thought that women weren't prohibited from voting in the UK until coverture in the 1830s. Even under coverture, I believe, unmarried women could still own property and do most things men could--I'm not sure about voting.
Karen Straughan had a lot to say about coverture but I can never find any of it because she's made so much content and she's fond of cute titles that really don't tell you much about what's in the blog or video.
Strangely the explicit exclusion of women voting was a result of the 1831 reform act which was the first to say "Male persons" over 21 and with sufficient property. Prior to that some wealthy women had voted. The reform act was about the national elections and the more complex nature of the local council electorate is shown by such as this "There is a poll book from 1843 that clearly shows thirty women's names among those who voted. These women were playing an active role in the election. On the roll, the wealthiest female elector was Grace Brown, a butcher. Due to the high rates that she paid, Grace Brown was entitled to four votes" as you can see women did vote and like men greater wealth (taxable) meant you got more votes! The 1869 more explicitly gave the franchise to single women, widows or indeed divorcees with property. This was then extended to married women whose husbands taxable wealth was counted. As you can see in the UK the key was paying tax on property. Thus prior to the 1918 act 40% of "Male persons" over 21 could not vote because they were not paying a property tax. Of course this means a much higher % of the soldiers in WW1 couldn't have voted because the bulk of volunteers and later conscripted "men" were not 21. One great uncle was in the high seas fleet fighting the U boat menace at 16 and another was fighting in the middle east at 17.
Coverture is interesting because this seems to have been much more prominent in the US . In the UK ( and remembering Scotland and Ireland had separate legal systems) certainly women from aristocratic and gentry appear not to have their inheritance just lumped in with their husband. Indeed where the wife's family was more prestigious the husband took the name of his wife's in order to ensure their progeny would inherit the more illustrious name and hopefully some property. This happened in two of the local "county" families in the 19th century and I'm sure it was equally as common in the rest of the country. Of course no one gave any thought about the vast majority of tte population who had nothing and the relatively sudden huge expansion of the bourgeoisie, whose wealth was not in land probably pushed the legal presumptions hard.
Good stuff to know.
As I recall, in the podcast of Karen's I can no longer find, she said that, under coverture, women could have money of their own but all of a man's wealth was community property. Men were responsible for the support of the family but women were not. She also explained that married women couldn't get credit or sign contracts simply because their husbands, alone, would assume all responsibility for their debts and contractual obligations and they would have none.
In this country (England) the thing about male relatives being guarantors was introduced following campaigns ( Dickens being very prominent) to end the "horror" of being imprisoned for debt. It ended that possibility by requiring a male relative to be the responsible person. Prior to this new "enlightened" law even quite aristorcatic ladies had had found themselves incarcerated just like debtor men. This of course was in a society where going to prison for non payment of debts was a regular thing. In a sense the feminists are right, during the Victorian era the push to protect ladies from any nastiness did indeed remove their responsibilities. These statutes were quite short lived as here they mainly disapeared in the 1960s.
I don't think a prison sentence for unpaid debt in necessarily a bad thing. People often rack up debt with no intention of paying, which is tantamount to theft.
Currently, in the US, I often see and hear arguments regarding credit scores being cruel and unusual punishments that are 'targetted' at oppressing women and minorities. The idea, here too, is that everyone is entitled to freely borrow money (because everyone deserves whatever they feel they need or want) and it has to be paid for by those who can afford to pay. In this instance, it's a broadly applied progressive tax system but, as we all know, white males would overwhelmingly bear the brunt of it.