coverture

• couverture

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

coverture (countable and uncountable, plural covertures)

1. (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.

2. Alternative spelling of couverture.
3. 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.

• feme covert

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

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.

• English: coverture
• French: couverture