20 Things Women Once Needed A Man’s Legal Permission To Do

Imagine not being able to wear what you want whenever you walk out your door. Well, that was the case for women in Paris when, on November 8, 1800, the police prefecture announced that women had to obtain a special permit before they could wear trousers in public. They relaxed the rule in 1892 for horseback riding and again in 1909 for cycling. Granted, people had stopped really enforcing it long before then, but here’s what surprised me: they didn’t formally abolish it until 2013. Yes, 2013. Everyone was already deep into skinny jeans, peplum tops, galaxy patterns for everything, and all the other iconic fashion choices of the early 2010s, and Paris, the city renowned for fashion itself, technically still had a 200-year-old rule about women wearing pants!

Muriel Siebert wanted to get a seat on the New York Stock Exchange floor in 1967, but before officials agreed to look at her application, they told her she’d have to secure a bank loan for $300,000. She did, and on December 28, 1967, Siebert became the first woman to join the exchange, which had only admitted men since the 1792 Buttonwood Agreement.

McSorley’s Old Ale House in Manhattan had a very simple rule for much of its history: no serving women. It wasn’t the only American tavern with rules like this. Some even barred unescorted women or made them enter through separate doors. Eventually, two female attorneys had enough and sued McSorley’s over its men-only policy. In 1970, a federal court struck down the ban on equal protection grounds in Seidenberg v. McSorley’s Old Ale House.

Until the passage of Loi n° 65-570, which took effect on February 1, 1966, Article 213 of France’s 1804 Napoleonic Code prevented married women from having bank accounts or controlling their own money without their husband’s permission. Even in the U.S., where no law required it, banks discriminated informally until the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974.

After the women’s 800-meter race at the 1928 Olympics, newspapers made a huge deal out of how exhausted some of the runners looked after crossing the finish line. And I say this with rolling eyes: officials then used that supposed exhaustion to justify the exclusion of women in longer races. The IOC and IAAF removed the women’s 800 meters, leaving women with no Olympic track event longer than 200 meters. The 800 meters didn’t return until the 1960 Olympics in Rome, and women had to wait all the way until 1984 to compete in an Olympic marathon!

Under the Expatriation Act of March 2, 1907, American-born women became expatriated simply by virtue of marrying a noncitizen, no matter where they resided. To regain citizenship, they had to undergo naturalization procedures after divorce or the death of their spouse. The marriage of American men to noncitizens caused no such loss. The Cable Act of 1922 repealed these provisions for most women. However, those women who were already married to men “ineligible for citizenship” remained affected until 1931.

Women’s football drew crowds of more than 50,000 around Britain in the First World War. On December 5, 1921, the Football Association (FA) Council banned women’s teams from using its affiliated grounds, declaring that “the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.” That was a resolution by one football authority, not an act of Parliament; and the ban remained in place until it was lifted in December 1971. I like to think they were just threatened!

The federal Comstock Act of 1873 banned mailing contraceptive devices or information, and several state laws, like Connecticut’s 1879 ban, prohibited the use of birth control altogether. Though the FDA approved Enovid, the first “pill,” in 1960, this did not make the pill legal in states that had laws prohibiting its use. Such prohibitions were lifted for married couples in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965. Unmarried individuals gained this right in Eisenstadt v. Baird in 1972.

Under the old common-law doctrine of coverture, getting married basically meant a woman’s legal identity was absorbed into her husband’s. She became a feme covert, and even the wages she earned legally belonged to him. Her employer could actually hand her paycheck directly to her husband instead of her! An unmarried woman, known as a feme sole, had far more control over her own wages and property. These rules gradually began to change with Married Women’s Property Acts, starting in New York in 1848, followed by major reforms in Britain in 1870 and 1882.

Women received the right to vote in 1920 with the 19th Amendment, but serving on a jury was another story. A lot of states used opt-in rules that kept women off juries unless they actually filed a written request to serve. In a unanimous 1961 decision in Hoyt v. Florida, the Supreme Court ruled that such laws were constitutional because women were still “regarded as the center of home and family life.” These statutes were not struck down until Taylor v. Louisiana in 1975.

Prior to the enactment of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) on Oct. 28, 1974, banks required that a married woman obtain a male co-signer before she could receive a mortgage, auto loan, or credit card. Lenders often reduced a wife’s income 50 to 100% in underwriting, presuming that she was likely to become pregnant and drop out of the workforce. ECOA made lending decisions based on sex or marital status illegal.

Before the late 1960s, U.S. and Western courts required evidence of a specific cause (i.e., adultery, cruelty, or desertion) before granting a divorce. Mere incompatibility between the spouses was insufficient, and in the absence of proof, judges simply dismissed the petition. California became the first state in the United States to enact a no-fault divorce statute with the passing of its Family Law Act of 1969, which took effect January 1, 1970.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts issued two advisory opinions, in 1896 and in 1899, concluding that women were not eligible under the Constitution to be notaries public because the office was a “public office” and such positions were reserved for male voters. In other parts of the country, it took either changes to state constitutions or new laws before women were able to serve as notaries.

Under the French Civil Code, a husband could unilaterally prevent his wife from taking a job, a provision that was only abolished by legislation on July 13, 1965. The “permiso marital” in Francoist Spain mandated that the husband’s written permission was required for the wife to be employed, and was only repealed when a 1975 law came into force. In West Germany, the civil code provided for the housewife marriage until 1977. These were all legal powers, not just socially imposed.

At common law in England and in the United States, fathers possessed legal custody of their children born during wedlock; separated mothers had no automatic right to keep their kids without a court stepping in. In 1839, Parliament passed the Custody of Infants Act, which allowed equity courts to grant mothers custody of children under seven, marking the birth of the tender years doctrine.

In 1942, an 18-year-old man could walk into a recruiting office and sign up on his own. That same year, Congress created the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service)—but women under 21 needed parental permission in writing to join. If they were married, they needed their husband’s permission to join, while no such requirement applied to married men. Yep, unfair!

Marriage bars imposed by Western governments required female civil servants to quit their jobs upon getting married. Although Britain’s Home Civil Service lifted the bar in 1946, its Foreign Office did not repeal its policy requiring female diplomats to resign when they married until 1973. A similar policy in the US Foreign Service survived until the courts overturned it in 1972.

Coverture and other civil codes had deprived married women of the legal capacity to enter into contracts. A wife could not purchase real estate, execute a binding agreement, or convey property she owned prior to marriage without her husband signing along as well. Any contract she executed on her own could be set aside in court. Fortunately, the Married Women’s Property Acts began to restore those rights, state by state, between 1848 and 1882.

Even though common law allowed women to change their name informally, without any court filing, US agencies made married women use their husband’s last name to get a driver’s license, register to vote, or obtain other legal documents. The Lucy Stone League, founded in 1921, spent decades fighting those rules before Maryland’s high court struck down the state’s mandatory spousal surname rule for civic registration in 1972.

In Washington, the National Press Club wouldn’t allow women to join the club or even to eat in the main dining room when a visiting head of state gave a speech. Reporters at these events were sent instead to a small, unheated balcony where they couldn’t ask questions and where no food was served. After several years of protesting, members finally voted on Jan. 15, 1971, to allow women to become full members.

This content was created with the help of AI.