Civil marriage has undergone significant changes in the United States since the country's inception: * 1830 - Right of married woman to own property in her own name (instead of all property being owned exclusively by the husband) in Mississippi. * 1848 - Right of married women to own property in her own name in New York. * 1854 - The Republican party referred in its platform to polygamy as one of the "twin relics of barbarism" (in addition to slavery). At the time, polygamy was a practice of some Mormons. * 1862 - The United States Congress enacted the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln, which made bigamy a felony in the territories punishable by $500 or five years in prison. * 1873 - Supreme Court rules that a state has the right to exclude a married woma