Hampshire Women as Landholders: Common Law Mediated by Manorial Custom

Abstract

The traditional idea of a landowner is inextricably bound up with concepts of maleness. The most frequently used word for a landowner is simply ‘landlord’, with the corresponding feminine form ‘landlady’ carrying quite different connotations. The law with regard to inheritance and marriage lends weight to this interpretation, since common law, until the mid-nineteenth century, decreed that married women could not own property or make contracts as individuals, in theory leaving only spinsters and widows as potential landowners. Yet scrutiny of manorial, enclosure, tithe and land tax documentation reveals that women commonly held land either as owners or occupiers.