Common Contracts
1 similar Marital Agreements contracts
MARITAL AGREEMENTS IN SCOTLANDMarital Agreements • April 13th, 2016
The common law of Scotland originally imposed what looked like a community of property regime on married couples, analogous to the systems well-known throughout the ius commune of western Europe,1 though in a form that in the modern period has been described as ‘extremely crude’.2 It was not based on any partnership between the spouses, nor on a relationship involving equal shares and equal responsibilities - or even a division of shares and a division of responsibilities. Rather it was a much more primitive system based on the husband’s absolute rights that he acquired on marriage, and a woman’s economic subservience, both elements of which were perceived as being part of the natural law (i.e. divinely ordained)3. Together with the primogeniture rules of succession, the form of community of property pertaining in Scotland was an effective means of ensuring that control of property remained, as far as possible, within the male domain.
