The first improvement in the legal condition of a married woman was made by the Equity Courts in their creation of what was known as the Wife's Separate Estate. The beginnings of this principle was as follows: When a husband was obliged to go into a court of equity to reduce any of the wife's property to possession, the court would decree a right of equity to the wife out of such property. This is an illustration of the maxim in equity that he who seeks equity, must do equity. The wife's right of equity could also be asserted by the wife against the creditors of her husband, when the financial condition of the latter made the loss of all her property imminent. Later it became possible to transfer property to a married woman to be held by her independently of the control of her husband.

The separate property of the wife was that property, which, through the assistance of the courts of equity, she was allowed to hold independently of the control of her husband. A married woman was allowed to control, and to sue and be sued in equity in relation to matters affecting her separate estate. At a later period wherever a woman contracted any debt, she was presumed to have contracted it on the credit of her separate estate, and therefore her separate estate could be made liable for its payment by means of a suit in equity.