English Common Law often provided the basis for judicial law in colonial America. But because of the lack of uniformity in the courts and legislative bodies from colony to colony, laws were subject to wide interpretation. By the later part of the eighteenth century, laws, even regarding women, became more specific.<br> <br> Thomas Jefferson owned this 1632 British volume attributed to Sir John Dodderidge, “which comprehends all our Lawes concerning Women, either Children in government or nurture of their Parents or Gardians, Mayds, Wives, and Widowes, and their goods, inheritances, and other estates.”