Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 June 16

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June 16

When were women allowed to handle their own bank account?

In the novel Affinity (novel), set in Victorian England of the 1870s, the heroine of the novel, and unmarried middle class women in her 30s, are not legally allowed to take out her own money from her own bank account without a signed approval from her brother (her father is dead) which she are required to show to the bank staff before they give her the money. Is this historically correct? That seem to indicate, that unmarried adult women in Victorian England were minors, as an adult person should be allowed to handle their own money as they see fit. So my question is: was this historically correct, and it so, when were adult unmarried women allowed to handle their own bank accounts without the signature of a male guardian? Thank you.--Aciram (talk) 07:31, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

It could be correct if her brother has been named as a trustee of a fortune she inherited which had legal conditions attached to it. It is not true if she owned the money without any such restrictions. (Under coverture, an unmarried woman over the age of 21 is "feme sole".) But her brother would not legally be her "guardian" unless she has been found incompetent in some way (being a trustee of money and a guardian of a person are two different things). AnonMoos (talk) 09:42, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I just briefly scanned my copy of the novel. It clearly states that the heroine's money - her inheritance from her father - is hers, but it is held in trusteeship for her by her brother. This is in the section headed 24 December 1874 (pp. 291-4 of the 2000 Virago paperback edition) as the novel mainly takes the form of a diary. Her brother also states the money is hers "unless, of course [...] you marry", which is in keeping with the information in the Married Women's Property Act 1870 article which states that it only applied to property earned or (some property) inherited during marriage and that property owned at the time of marriage still became the husband's property. Valiantis (talk) 23:05, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

The Married Women's Property Act 1870 allowed women to have control of their own money, and further gains were made by the Married Women's Property Act 1882. So the novel may well be historically inaccurate, but only by a few years. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:38, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

However, the various Married Women's property acts predominantly dealt with the situation of a marred woman under coverture, while the question asks about an unmarried woman who is not under coverture. AnonMoos (talk) 09:44, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Also the question specifies a woman without specifying substantive or merely formal access; and, without specifying a (presumed?) bourgeois class. In actuality, British women gained substantive access to banking depending on their family and class circumstances across the 19th and 20th century. (No rape in marriage? How on earth can you claim that's substantive access). Fifelfoo (talk) 10:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)