Note 67 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Married women might become merchants on their own account and carry on trade, hold property and answer in all matters of business before the law as independent traders. (Eng. Gilds, 382. Mun. Records, Carlisle, ed. Ferguson and Nansen, 79. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 174.) Women might become members of the Merchant Gild at Totnes by inheritance, by purchase, or by gift. (Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 342-3.) Their property was carefully guarded, and no tenement held by the wife’s right could be alienated or burdened with a rent unless the wife had given her free consent openly in the Mayor’s Court. (Nott. Records, i. 83, 265.)