How far we’ve come

This year marks a milestone for the United States: the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Anniversaries invite us to look back — to measure how far we have come and to celebrate what has been won along the way.

The values our nation’s founders reached for are worth honoring. They declared that all people are created equal, and they sought freedom, the right to pursue happiness, and a government in which everyone had a voice.

As inspirational as that language is, it was also incomplete. In practice, our founders extended those values only to white men. But the limits of the document do not diminish the power of its aspiration. And that aspiration has served as a call to action time and time again in our nation’s history. It set a standard to strive for and created the impetus to fight for women’s equality, including a woman’s right to independently own and manage her wealth.

The battle for women’s financial independence was neither quick nor easy. Achieving true equality for those a nation leaves out never is. But the progress we have made is worth celebrating, and the milestones along the way are worth remembering.

Coverture doctrine

During the United States’ earliest days, women were technically allowed to participate in the economy. They could legally work and earn money, primarily in what were considered traditionally feminine careers, such as innkeepers and tavernkeepers. Single women were also allowed access to banking, although they made up a small percentage of customers due to social obstacles.

However, things changed when a woman married. Under a legal doctrine called coverture — imported to the colonies by the English — a wife’s identity was considered legally merged with her husband’s. She was “covered” by him and, in the eyes of the law, did not exist as an individual at all. Husband and wife were seen as one person, and that one was the husband.

Coverture made independence impossible for married women in many areas of life, particularly financial. A husband generally acquired control over his wife’s earnings and much of the property she brought into the marriage. A married woman generally could not legally own property, sign contracts, or draft wills without her husband’s consent.

Fortunately, coverture was phased out over roughly four decades, beginning with Mississippi’s Married Women’s Property Act in 1839 and continuing through the 1880s as states enacted similar reforms.

Credit access

Although coverture was abolished in the 19th century, the struggle for women’s financial independence was not over. Prior to 1974, financial institutions were allowed to deny women credit and loans based solely on sex or marital status.

When women applied, banks were legally allowed to ask questions about whether they were married and if they planned to use a male cosigner. Even when a woman earned her own income and was financially qualified to make payments, without a husband, father, brother, or another man to cosign for her, she could and often was denied access to leverage.

This applied not only to loans but to credit cards as well. Married women were only allowed to obtain credit cards in their husband’s name, with a “Mrs.” tacked to the front. This made it impossible for married women to build credit for themselves, even if they paid their own bills. If a woman divorced or her husband passed away, she was left with no credit history of her own and few avenues to pursue loans.

In 1974, Congress passed the initial Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), a first attempt to make these practices illegal. In 1976, Congress strengthened the ECOA by broadening its protections. The amendments made it illegal for financial institutions to discriminate against credit and loan applicants based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, or receipt of public assistance as well as sex and marital status. They were mandated to approve applicants based only on their creditworthiness.

A long way

Of course, despite the passage of the ECOA, systemic issues persist. People of color and other protected groups still experience discrimination by financial institutions. Women’s wages are still on average lower than men’s wages, and the gap is especially prominent for women of color. But the ECOA empowered women to pursue increased financial independence from men and allows all people to seek justice in the face of financial discrimination.

We have come a long way in the last 250 years in establishing greater financial independence for women.

From the ECOA granting rights to credit to the 1988 Women’s Business Ownership Act to the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and many more legal and social victories throughout the decades, we have made incredible progress.

In fact, in 2024, 29% of C-suite executives were women compared with 17% a decade prior. Women of all racial and ethnic groups (in the 25-34 age range) are more likely than men to have bachelor’s degrees.

It is also predicted that women will control $30 trillion of financial assets by 2030 as the primary beneficiaries of a massive wealth transfer from baby boomers. The strides toward financial independence for women in this country were hard won. As we celebrate the anniversary of our nation’s birth, we should also honor those who fought to make the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence a reality. What better way to honor their legacy than to continue striving — and never give up until true financial freedom for all women has been achieved.

A slightly different version of this article was published in Barron’s.