The Serpent Under the Flower: Equity’s Tenderness Towards Married Women in the Doctrine of Undue Influence

Under English law, it is Equity that appears to have the strongest feminist credentials. It professes to treat women, especially married women, ‘more tenderly’ than men. Equity herself is a ‘woman’, a ‘special friend of womankind’; perhaps even a ‘sister’. At times she is a ‘white knight’, riding to ‘the rescue of some damsel caught in the toils of the common law’. She is seen as a ‘vehicle for justice and protection of those who are vulnerable’, a ‘system which matches established principle to the demands of social change’, capable of recasting the established norms of our civil law to ensure women’s rights are given adequate levels of protection. Hence, if one desires to assess the extent to which the rights of women are protected under English Law, Equity is a good place to look. Particularly, the doctrine of undue influence pertains to women directly: it focuses on relational abuses, family home and distribution of power within relationships. Tracing the court’s approach to what we term the ‘husband/wife scenario’ is particularly