Don't Fret, My Pet. You're Covered.

No, friend, women weren't "given" the right to vote

In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act and a year later the Civil Rights Act passed. In 1965, the Supreme Court overturned laws regulating where and when a woman can work and opened entire new career paths for women. Later that year, the Supreme Court concluded that the Constitution does infer a right to privacy and, with that decision, married women could legally take birth control. In 1971, the Supreme Court makes it illegal to descriminate against female job candidates because they have small children. That year, marks the first time the Court refers to a woman as a person under the Constitution. Title IX prohibiting descrimination in educational institutions passed in 1972 and the Supreme Court expanded the right to privacy to unmarried women. Finally, women could control a big chunk of their reproductive decisions.

But why? Why did women need special laws providing them with legal protections? One word -

Coverture.

In British law and subsequently American law, women were “covered” by the men in their lives. First their daddy then their husband. Coverture laws gave men lordship over their wife, their children and, the people they enslaved.

Coverture laws, “stipulated that a married woman did not have a separate legal existence from her husband. A married woman or feme covert was a dependent, like an underage child or a slave, and could not own property in her own name or control her own earnings…”

Harvard Business School

Every thing a woman produced, earned or inherited was controlled by the man who covered her. In a very real sense when she married, her husband’s identity consumed hers. In return he was obliged to protect her and, therefore, full Consitutional rights and responsibilities were not necessary. It simply wasn’t the government obligation to protect women because that’s the job of the man who covers her and because she simply isn’t a separate legal entity. 

And the Supreme Court agreed. In 1805, the Court set the legal precedent that married women did not have separate political identities or citizenship from their husbands under coverture. (Martin v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts).

Be it enacted…no person shall vote in any state or county election for officers in the government of the United States, or of this state, unless such person be a free, white, male citizen of this state…”

The New Jersey State Legislature, Acts of New Jersey, November 16, 1807

It took one hundred and fifty-five years but, on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified and with one sentence - The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

The Right to Vote remains the only Constitutional right offered to women.

Do you have a favorite Suffragist?

Honor them by voting.