 TITLE: Women and Credit 2020: How History Shaped Today’s Credit Landscape CONTENT: Women's Credit and Finances Before the Equal Credit Opportunity Act\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\nWomen's financial subservience to men was the norm for centuries. Married women in the early U.S. were not considered legal entities independent of their husbands thanks to a principle known as coverture, a holdover from British law.\nThat meant husbands could take control of real estate wives brought into the marriage, and they took full ownership of all other types of property she held. (Single women had the same legal right to property as men, but the number of unmarried women in the 18th and 19th centuries was very low compared with today.) Married women also could not manage their own income, make contracts or create wills.\n> Women carry less debt than men in nearly all credit categories.\nStarting in the mid-1800s, states began enacting laws chipping away at these restrictions for married women. In 1848, New York became the first to pass an extensive law allowing married women to own property, but it took decades for all American married women to gain full legal control of their property, savings and earnings. Well into the 20th century, they continued to face financial discrimination.\nMarried women seeking mortgages with their husbands encountered lenders who wouldn't include their full incomes in the application, and many lenders and credit card issuers required a man to cosign a woman's credit application. One argument was that a working woman's income was more likely to drop in the future if they took time away from the workforce while they cared for family members. But the process amounted to overt gender-based discrimination. END