The Impact of Michigan’s Common-Law Disabilities of Coverture on Married Women’s Access to Credit

In the United States, credit is indispensable to the improvement of one’s economic status and life style. Its availability often dictates •the extent to which one has access to education, homeownership, entrepreneurship, and investment, and its unobtainability inhibits full participation in the activities and opportunities of American society. American women have long been systematically excluded from equal access to credit by lending institutions of all types and ·thus have been denied their rightful role in the economic life of the country. It is only recently, however, that the women’s movement has begun to focus attention on credit discrimination and that the legal and financial communities, the government, and the general public have recognized the problems encountered by women seeking to obtain credit.