California Sea Grant College Program

American marital property law has always been the province of the individual states. During the nineteenth century, for a variety of social, political and economic reasons, this became a particularly volatile area of the law across the nation, with no two jurisdictions treating the subject identically. Nevertheless, marital property schemes did divide into two general categories: those based in the common law, and those situated within the French and Spanish civil law tradition (the community property system). In general, these schemes separated geographically: states east of the Mississippi were common-law jurisdictions, while community property states and territories were located west of the Mississippi.1 1The following states and territories operated under the community property system during the nineteenth century: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Washington. William Q. deFuniak, Principles of Communitv Property 72 (1943).