1826 · Haitianyear only
Married women are placed in law beside minors and the insane
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When Haiti adopted the Napoleonic Code in 1826, the text listed the persons holding no rights before the law as minors, married women, criminals and the mentally deficient. That wording cancelled the more generous provision Henry Christophe had issued in 1807 and returned the married woman to the standing of a minor unable to exercise any civil right. In 1840 Jean-Pierre Boyer went the other way and established by law the civil capacity of the married woman, who could now receive capital in property, contract obligations, mortgage, acquire and dispose of assets whether for payment or as a gift, and go to law, all without her husband's authorisation. Across the world the civil emancipation of married women did not take hold until the second half of the nineteenth century, which made the Haitian law early. On 22 May 1843 the provisional government that followed Boyer repealed it, in a spirit of simple opposition.