This is true, but women entering marriage could only hold such property
providing the 18th/19th-century equivalent of a prenup was signed.

I have seen a number of such contracts in Rockbridge County, all designed to
keep the woman/wife-to-be in control of her own property.  Still, these were
rare.  It was more usual for women to hold property in their own right upon
the deaths of their husbands.

See Lebsock's, __The Free Women of Petersburg__.

JW

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