If you want to win the war of nit-picking, you win. You are right that the Constitution was not operative yet in 1788. > Unmarried women could own property, bu

If you want to win the war of nit-picking, you win. You are right that the Constitution was not operative yet in 1788. > Unmarried women could own property, but under the common law doctrine of coverture, married women could neither own property That's what I said. (And not entering into contracts or earning salary are corollaries of that.) By "joint ownership," I didn't mean some specific conception of joint ownership that you seem to be referring to. I meant that they owned things together, which means that whoever was more dominant in the marriage would have say---and legally, the husband would be free to completely dominate if he wanted. > while the Ninth and Tenth Amendments remain in effect today Go read them---they are not in effect in practice. I don't care to continue this discussion, so I won't continue discussing it. It's pointless anyway, we are too philosophically different. If we want to argue we should argue about philosophy. Arguing on this level accomplishes nothing.