The Married Women’s Association (MWA) was the first pressure group of the twentieth century to demand, as its core focus, legal and economic equality for spouses. Formed in 1938, the MWA emphasised the language of equal partnership in marriage and sought to reform the law so that spouses would acquire rights in their partners’ property during marriage – an ambition that was never achieved yet influenced family law in subtler ways. In demanding what the MWA dubbed a ‘new marriage law’ the Association politicised the family sphere, arguing that legal and economic equality inside the home would enable women to be better equipped to also pursue equality in the public sphere. And by representing housewives in a legal setting, the MWA mounted the first significant challenge against the legal status of married women since the Married Women’s Property Act (MWPA) 1882.
The full version of this landmark is written by Sharon Thompson.