Because she realized that she was dying, and she wanted to give her money to her parents, even if it wasn’t her money “legally” anymore.
Since she had no legal right as a married woman to own property in her name and her husband was still very much alive, scratching out the four-page document was the ultimate act
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she was the wife of president john adams
john adams was alive
Fall of 1818
every wife in America was a feme covert -- a covered woman
"The husband and wife are one person in law," English legal theorist William Blackstone had explained back in 1765
"that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage."
Adams complained to her husband in 1782, that married women's property was "subject to the controul and disposal of our partners, to whom the Laws have given a soverign Authority."
Husbands assumed complete authority over their wives' real estate (land and buildings).
if a married woman brought to her marriage, or later acquired, personal property (which consisted of everything except real estate, be it cash or cattle), it, along with the income generated by her real estate, went to her husband, to dispose of as he pleased.
Thousands of spinsters and widows left wills giving away their belongings,
but married women were not permitted to distribute their real estate
it was divided equally among their children
there was no reason for them to express their wishes regarding their personal property, for they had none to give
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