[4] Upon marriage, the husband and wife became one person under the law, as the property of the wife was surrendered to her husband, and her status as a separate legal personality, with the ability to own property, and sue and be sued solely in her own name, ceased to exist.

The wife would then receive the benefits of the property through her control of the trustees and her right in the law of equity as the beneficial owner.

The few exceptions of married women who were femmes sole were queens of England, and Margaret Beaufort, who was declared to be a femme sole by a 1485 act of parliament passed by her son, in spite of the fact Beaufort was still married to Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby.

The dissolution of a marriage, whether initiated by the husband or wife, usually left the divorced females impoverished, as the law offered them no rights to marital property.

The Act altered the common law doctrine of coverture to include the wife's right to own, buy and sell her separate property.

[8] Of these, one of the more important was s. 11, which provided that a widow could in her own right enforce her late husband's life assurance policy.