One of my favorite ways to research my ancestors is to browse historical newspapers. Recently, while delving into the Clement family history, I came across a public notice issued by my second great-uncle, Louis Clement, regarding my second great-aunt, Dora Bertrand Clement.
It appeared that Aunt Dora had some interesting ways that involved accumulating debts and car accidents that held Uncle Louis liable.
This public notice was posted in the Jennings Daily News on Saturday, February 05, 1921, and ran several days from what I could find, and it makes me wonder what prompted him to put the notice in the paper in the first place. Was she a closet shopper and a lousy driver?
Enter Coverture
During this time, women did not legally exist due to coverture and had no rights to anything except the clothing on their backs. Aunt Dora could, in good faith, request credit from a shopkeeper on her husband’s behalf without permission.
Coverture held that no female person had a legal identity. At birth, a female baby was covered by her father’s identity, and then, when she married, by her husband’s. The husband and wife became one–and that one was the husband. As a symbol of this subsuming of identity, women took the last names of their husbands.1
Uncle Louis likely put the notice in the paper to avoid being liable for Aunt Dora’s debts and to prevent credits from being extended to her. The notice informed everyone that she was acting without his consent and likely provided him with solid grounds to argue if he was sued for unpaid debts or automobile accidents involving her.
Footnotes
- Coverture: The word you probably don’t know but should. National Women’s History Museum. (2012, September 4). https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/coverture-word-you-probably-dont-know-should#:~:text=Coverture%20held%20that%20no%20female,last%20names%20of%20their%20husbands.
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