coverture

English

Alternative forms

• couverture

Etymology

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French coverture, from covrir (“to cover”) or from Late Latin coopertura. Doublet of couverture.

Noun

coverture (countable and uncountable, plural covertures)

1. Concealing cover, disguise, veil; also figurative
2. (law, historical) A common law doctrine developed in England during the Middle Ages, whereby a woman's legal existence, upon marriage, was subsumed by that of her husband, particularly with regard to ownership of property and protection.
   • 2006, Akhil Reed Amar, America's Constitution: A Biography:

     Note that voting by widows did not raise some of the concerns that might have arisen from voting by wives subject to common-law coverture servitude to their husbands.

3. Alternative spelling of couverture.
4. Shelter, hiding place.
   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     URSULA. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
     Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
     And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
     So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
     Is couched in the woodbine coverture.

Related terms

• feme covert

Old French

Etymology

From Late Latin coopertūra, from Latin coopertus; equivalent to covert +‎ -ure, from covrir (“to cover”).

Noun

coverture oblique singular, f (oblique plural covertures, nominative singular coverture, nominative plural covertures)

1. covering; cover
   • Perceval ou le conte du Graal, Christian of Troyes

     sanz coverture fu la sele[.]

     The saddle was without a cover.

Descendants

• English: coverture
• French: couverture