Abstract
By Magna Carta, ‘no one would be sold, refused or delayed right or justice. Blackstone’s coverture doctrine denied wives justice, disadvantaging single women, too. Matrimonial Causes Acts meant UK, US, Canadian, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australian women gained property rights and obligations. As Scutt explains, women wanting loans or credit purchasers had to find male guarantors, yet women were easily persuaded to repay defaulting husbands’ loans. Hence, banks valued wives, taking advantage when women’s signatures became important. Women sought justice for release from financial transactions not explained to them. Some courts constructed ‘special’ laws for wives. Scutt challenges courts’ understandings of women, wives and justice. Women, Scutt observes, must challenge sexist government policies too, like the UK Fawcett Society in 2010, seeking justice through judicial review.
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Notes
Holt, Magna Carta, 2015, p. 262.
Holt, Magna Carta 2015, p. 46;
Beloff, ‘Magna Carta’, 2015, p. 6.
Kempe, The Book, 1438, 2000, 2004.
Staves, Married Women’s Separate Property, 1990.
Scutt, ‘Cash or Kind’, 1997
Kempe, The Book, 1438, 2004, p. 2.
See Kanowitz, Women and the Law, 1969, p. 39;
Donovan, ‘Retreat from Yerkey v. Jones’, 1996.
Lemire, Business of Everyday Life, 2005, pp. 41–42.
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© 2016 Jocelynne A. Scutt
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Scutt, J.A. (2016). Access to Law and Justice. In: Women and Magna Carta: A Treaty for Rights or Wrongs?. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137562357_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137562357_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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