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Additionally, inheritance laws especially in English law used to be very strict about what wives and daughters could receive. Most of the property when a person died would go to a male heir even if that person left a wife or older daughter. This could even include the very house a woman was living in when her husband died. Cue Jane Austen and other writers of this era who discuss problems of women’s legal dependence. At certain times women could not hold land, houses, or bank accounts but they could take more personal property like jewelry or dresses. Women had to be conscious of the value of their clothing and jewelry because it could someday mean the difference between penniless or able to afford a place to live after your husband or father died.