The repeal of the Head and Master law in 1978 and the writing of a new property law in 1980 was a particularly significant victory. Before 1978, the head and master law (Article 122 of the Louisiana Civil Code) held that "The wife, even when she is separate in estate from her husband, cannot alienate, grant, mortgage, acquire, either by gratuitous or encumbered title, unless her husband concurs in the act, or yields his consent in writing."
Reformers first thought that this law would be changed during the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1973. The Baton Rouge NOW Chapter and several women and men from other parts of the state successfully lobbied at the committee level for the inclusion of gender as protected status. However, their rewording of the constitution met with considerable opposition on the floor of the Convention. In response, New Orleans attorney Clay Latimer began a series of workshops, "The Changing Legal Status of Louisiana Women," with funding from the Louisiana Committee for the Humanities. Janet Mary Riley, an established lawyer who taught at Loyola University for many years, joined Latimer in these discussions with women across the state. As more and more difficult life stories emerged from women who were not given the same protection as their husbands, Riley became a chief proponent for changing the law and indeed largely wrote the new property law in 1980. The League of Women Voters and individuals such as Helen Coleman, Anita Ganucheaux, Eileen Armstrong, Felicia Kahn, Rupert Richardson, Pat Evans, Maurice Durbin, Margaret Pereboom, Dorothy Waldrup among others were crucial to the repeal of the old law. In April of 1981, a Louisiana court found in favor of a wife for the first time in a dispute concerning the husband’s encumbrance of a wife’s money.
