Perhaps he is referring to coverture, "(sometimes spelled couverture) was a legal doctrine in the English common law in which a married woman's legal existence was considered to be merged with that of her husband, so that she had no independent legal existence of her own. Upon marriage, coverture provided that a woman became a feme covert, whose legal rights and obligations were mostly subsumed by those of her husband. An unmarried woman, or feme sole, had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name." It's not beyond imagining that similar laws and practices were a part of other country's systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture

But, over all, it does sound like they could have done a better job.