Coverture laws, like the one in force in Illinois, said that women were legally “covered” by a man. If she was single, her father was meant to oversee her, and if she was married, the job fell to her husband. Women had few rights of their own—not to own property, not even legal rights to parent the children she birthed. In Illinois, if a couple divorced, the man got to dictate the terms of custody, and if he wanted to keep a woman from seeing her babies, he could. If a woman was deemed too much trouble, was too opinionated or intelligent, if she had what a man regarded as any emotional
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