If a legal document for a married woman refers to property as her “separate property,” it could have been property she had before the marriage or something she obtained during the marriage. Often this separate property was obtained from an inheritance, but not always. When seeing this reference, determine how the property was obtained–starting with land and estate/probate records.
Indicating that a property was a married woman’s separate property was usually done to prevent the property from being sold to pay the husband’s debts or otherwise being “wasted” by him. It’s possible that a married couple may set aside property as separate property for the wife during their marriage in order to try and prevent it from being used to pay for the husband’s debts or in a “we’ll live apart but we are not getting divorced” situation.
There was a reason the property was kept separate. Knowing more about the family and their financial situation may help to discover that reason.
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