White-Collar Wives Are Finally Winning!!!
“In English common law a married woman is nothing at all. She passes out of legal existence.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1869
Last week I received news that one of the members of The White-Collar Wives Project was finally able to have her name formally removed from over a dozen deed documents after her husband forged her name (along with an unscrupulous notary) without her knowledge. This was not only a big legal triumph for her but also serves as personal redemption toward her regaining her once stellar standing in her community that her husband deliberately destroyed to offset his own guilt. He went to prison for his multiple mortgage frauds yet nobody ever questioned “her” signature, or bothered to tell her that her name was on these fraudulent documents. She would only learn of the forgeries years later when taking a closer look at her ex-husband’s case while she was writing her memoir. Libby Earle Henry detailed these forgeries in her book, The People in My House, and exposed those who took part in that scheme. Her next step is to hold these people legally accountable for performing fraudulently against her and robbing her and her daughter of their good names. Why weren’t these forgeries brought up to Libby during the investigation or prosecution of her husband and his co-conspirators? Another example of the wife being the last to know.
I awoke this morning to more good news from another long-time member of The White-Collar Wives Project who shared with me that she received word yesterday that she has prevailed in her grueling years long legal battle in an asset seizure and forfeiture settlement with the government. The asset seizure and forfeiture occurred years ago as a result of her then husband’s white-collar crime. As a joint owner of the marital estate, the government cited that she had no standing to lay claim to her legally owned marital assets, even after she presented her marriage certificate to the court in a last ditch effort to express her standing. She worked for a government office for thirty years, raised children, and like all other innocent spouses who lose everything due to their husband’s financial crime, her only wrong move proved to be that she didn’t go to work with her husband daily to make sure he was on the right side of the law, but rather trusted her legal partner implicitly. The settlement is under wraps for now because the government doesn’t like losing to the milk cow in the yard, but the law is the law and the law finally prevailed in this hard won battle. Heaven forbid word gets out that the majority of white-collar wives are neither accomplices in their husband’s crime nor low hanging fruit for jurisdictional financial gain, but rather women with agency who will not hesitate to fight for their (and in turn, their children’s) legal rights and property.
Innocent spouses and children are not only victims of a spouse’s/father’s egregious familial betrayal of trust, they are also victims of courts that too often negate an innocent spouse’s right to their legally held joint marital assets and their right to due process to lay claim to those assets. That a an accused criminal has more legal rights than an innocent spouse is not only unjust, but unethical. I asked an attorney years ago how the government can continue to get away with negating an innocent spouse’s right to due process after civil asset seizure and he replied, “because so far, nobody has effectively challenged them.” While his response was repulsive, it was nonetheless validating.
With so many white-collar innocent spouses coming forward and standing up for themselves, (thanks to the White-Collar Wives Project there is safety in numbers), this fight is just beginning. Either marital property laws need to be enforced and or changed, or marriage needs to be abolished entirely. Innocent spouses (and children) are indeed victims of their white-collar fraudster husband’s, and they should not be forced to get to the back of the line to file for restitution along with other victims to lay claim to their own property. Wife is not a four letter word or a synonym for stupid, hen, chattel, or “the little lady.” We are not living under Old English Law and coverture, but some courts have not received that message. Those who commit financial crimes receive their due punishment, as they should, and as should anyone associated with their crimes, but innocent spouses and children should not suffer and be punished for those same crimes simply through the instrument of marriage or birth. Femme covert is a thing of the past. Courts, take note.
Common law/case law has it's place, but as a matter of what is right and fair, precedent too often promotes a lack of flexibility when confronted with the realities of this modern world, and results in a static body of law. Also, that one jurisdiction can interpret clear law differently than another in the same jurisdiction begs the question of judicial bias. But that is a battle for another day.
The White-Collar Wives Project continues to fight for the long established but routinely negated legal rights of innocent spouses (and children) who become entangled in their husband’s criminal punishment. Archaic laws and decisions regarding the marital property rights of wives have no place in the twenty-first century. I can cite too many cases where the women of The White-Collar Wives Project have been treated by the courts as if we are living strictly under Old English law from two hundred years ago. Harriet Beecher Stowe was right when she said, “A married woman is nothing at all. She passes out of legal existence."
Life Under Coverture - Coverture was well established under English Common Law for several centuries and was defined as, “the inclusion of a woman in the legal person of her husband upon marriage under common law.” Under coverture, married women did not have the legal capacity to hold their own property or contract on their own behalf and this common law was inherited by many other common law jurisdictions, including the United States. This legal doctrine held that a married woman's legal existence was considered to be merged with that of her husband so that she had no independent legal existence of her own. Upon marriage, coverture provided that a woman became a feme covert, whose legal rights and obligations were mostly subsumed by those of her husband. An unmarried woman, or feme sole, had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name.
Wives and The Bible - Ephesians 5:22-25 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Wife and Old English - Woman derives from the Old English word wifman, from the roots wif (with) and man. A woman (wifman) was a "wife-person." Man was the generic word for human being. Though of course there was no word meaning "husband-person."
The Married Women’s Property Act of 1839
Established the rights of women to enjoy the profits of their labor, to control real and personal property, to be parties to lawsuits and contracts, and to execute wills on their own behalf.
Married Women’s Property Act of 1964
It provides that, in the absence of any agreement between the spouses to the contrary, money derived from any allowance made by a husband for the expenses of the matrimonial home or for similar purposes and any property acquired out of such money shall be treated as belonging to the husband and wife in equal shares.
The White-Collar Wives Project has been featured in the New York Times, The American Bar Association Journal, Forbes, Market Watch, Bravo/Oxygen, the ACFE, and esteemed national podcasts.
