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Shop NordicTrack.com for Cyber Monday savings. Nordic Track. Train anywhere, explore everywhere. Yeah This is Our American Stories, and as you know, we tell stories about everything here on this show. And some of our favorite stories, well, they're about history.
And today Faith brings us some law history. from the state of Texas. Take it away, Faith. Hmm. If you have traveled much to Europe or any other country outside the US, You will see history dates from times like the 12th and 13th century.
And it soon becomes clear that America is actually a quite young country in comparison. With that being said, we owe much of our jurisprudence, that is, our law systems, other countries. and the people that came from them to the U.S. While the U.S. adopted English common law when becoming its own country, Texas was a bit different when they became a state.
because of the Spanish influence they had. Two of the laws that the Spanish brought over to Texas greatly impacted women's rights and freedoms. There was a time, unfortunately, not terribly long ago in our history, that women could not own property or have any money of their own. If their husband had debts to pay or owed taxes, The family's home could be seized and taken, leaving the wife and children homeless and helpless. To keep this from happening, the Spanish had brought with them their homestead exemption laws.
To help us unpack this long history of homestead laws, We have Doctor Gene stunts. a professor at West Texas A and M University. It starts back in Spain at the fall of the Roman Empire. There were Visigoths who had come down from the Germany area and settled in the Iberian Peninsula during the Roman Empire, and these were Christian because, of course, the Roman Empire was officially Christian. Then when the Roman Empire fell, these Visigoths were left pretty much unprotected and they splintered into very small little sort of kingdoms all over the place.
In the year 711, Muslims from northern Africa invaded Spain, going through the Rock of Gibraltar. And very quickly conquered all of these little scattered kingdoms because they couldn't work together to prevent it. And the Muslims went all the way up through. uh Spain, they crossed the Pyrenees and went into France before they were finally stopped.
So that was in the year 7-11.
Well, the people living in Spain who were still Christian wanted to take their country back.
Well, these guys in Spain would go out and raid the nearest Muslim settlement for women, for jewels, whatever they could find. Gradually, the Christians took over more and more territory until we get to the time of Ferdinand and Isabella when they completely conquer all of the Iberian Peninsulas and push the Muslims out.
Now, during this time, this seven centuries or so, It's when the Spanish legal system developed. And there were... Towns in Spain, and people lived in towns. They didn't really live out in the countryside. And so you had more artisans and craftspeople there than you might have in other parts of Europe where everybody just made everything themselves.
So in Spain, there developed this. law, this tradition. that if a man was in debt, you could not take away the tools of his trade. that is, if he was a blacksmith, you could not take his anvil and hammer. uh to pay the taxes, because then how could he raise the money to pay you?
How could he survive with his family if you took away the tools of his trade? This became set in stone in Spanish law that no matter how much a man owed, you could not take his home, you could not take the tools of his trade, because to do that would be a ruination for his family, that you would have to find some other way for him to pay his debt. And so that's in Spain. And then we know that Columbus came over to the New World and discovered all the people living here already. And the Spanish gradually moved northward from Mexico and into Texas.
And so for the first Hundred or so years of when we have documentation of life in Texas, it was Spanish. And this homestead exemption, as the English-speaking people called it, was recognized as something that worked pretty well. And since a lot of the Anglos coming into Texas had left behind a lot of debts back where they came from, they really liked the fact. that their land and their cattle and their tools of their trade could not be taken from them to pay their debts. And so when Texas became a Republican, again when it became a state, they adopted this homestead exemption.
as rule of law in Texas. And this lasted up until the 20th century, late 20th century, when it was modified by the Texas legislature. If the homestead exemption had not been put in place, and then what happened in the rest of what became the United States. If a man got into too much debt, his land could be seized, his house could be seized, all of his property could be seized. And the family would be turned out penniless, homeless.
And this affected women because married women were not allowed to own their own property. Under the English common law that the rest of the United States adopted, if a man gambled away his money, it was the women and children who suffered. And of course women in those days had very little ways of earning money to support themselves, and so the families would fall on desperate times indeed.
Okay. The other law that Texas had from the Spanish was community property law. This is that Whenever there's a husband and wife, anything that is gained in the marriage is split equally between them. And this comes from Spain. because again with all that sporadic fighting that was going on during those centuries, it became very important for women to have the ability to take care of themselves.
And especially as the Christian Spanish Slowly took over more and more land, they had to get women to come settle in the new towns that they created. And this was a dangerous area. There was still fighting going on, and so they had to offer the women more and more to get them to move into this dangerous area.
So they offered things like, well, If you move to this town, We're going to give women, even married women, the right to own their own bakeries and the. money that they make with their bakeries will belong to them and not their husbands. And so some women said, you know, That makes it worthwhile to move to a dangerous area. And so things like this happened, and women gained more and more rights throughout this reconquest of Spain. And so they also developed the community property system, where, as I said, anything that is gained during the marriage belongs to the husband and wife equally.
And the rest of Europe everything belonged to the husband. The wife owned nothing. She had no legal identity. She could not make a contract, so she couldn't own a business. She couldn't work for anyone because the husband would own her wages.
Even women committing crimes, it was the husband who was punished.
So that was in the rest of Europe, but in Spain, Women had their own rights and responsibilities. And again, this came to Texas when the Spanish came to Texas. And it was such a good system for living on a frontier that the Texas legislature kind of thought, you know, maybe we like this. And so during the Republic, even though they said in law that they adopted the English common law. People were saying, no, no, the women still have the right to this property.
And what is really fun for a historian, not probably for anybody else, but when I was reading the minutes of the Constitutional Convention that would allow Texas to join the United States in 1845, a lot of these delegates were worried about the debts they had left behind in Georgia and Alabama and so forth when they moved to Texas, because Texas was a different country.
So the people they owed money to could not touch them in Texas. And so in Texas, they had been given all these huge tracts of land, and they were flourishing, and they did not want those people back in Alabama and Georgia to be able to come take their land. To pay off their debts.
So there was a lot of hesitation about joining the United States. because of this that they did not want to lose their land. But There was a lawyer, and he became Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court named Hemp Hill. and he had studied Spanish law, and he was at the convention. And so he made this speech and he says, you know, If we adopt community property law, Like Spain.
Head. Then they cannot take your land because half of it belongs to your wife and not to you. And so this hushed silence sort of fell over this convention of men who were anxious to keep hold of their own property, and they said, you know. That might work. And so they adopted the community property system.
to keep their land from going to their creditors. They didn't really care about giving women extra rights or anything because this was the 1840s and they didn't expect women to have any rights. But if they adopted this community property system, then their creditors could not take their land. And so when Texas joined the United States in 1845, it was with community property firmly in place. Homestead exemption and community property laws vary state to state.
and the laws originally brought to Texas from the Spanish, have been modified in different ways. Although the male lawmakers at the time were not too concerned about women's rights, We can see that these laws in particular greatly impacted women for years to come. And for that, we can thank the Texans. And a special thanks to Dr. Gene Stunts.
From West Texas AM University. Who gave us the history and the story behind the story of where that law came from? Great storytelling. And by the way, all of our stories. about history are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College.
The story of the Texas Homestead Exemption Law is here. on our American stories.
Okay, so Shh, you won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs. Is your child having conversations you never imagined? Are they learning without realizing it? It's not a tablet. It's not a toy.
It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning. Hear the future of playtime. Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus. Only at Costco. With their moustache, a taco in one hand, and ordering a rod in the other.
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Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at venmo.me slash stash terms. Black Friday at Abercrombie Kids is here with 40% off everything. And iHeart listeners are getting an extra 15% off with code iHeartAF.
This is your time to shine and finish holiday shopping on sale. Shop in the app online and in stores. 40% off everything valid in stores and online, November 24th, 2025 to December 1st, 2025 in U.S. and Canada. Excludes clearance and gift cards.
Online price reflex discount. Use code iHeartAF to get an additional 15% off everything in stores and online at checkout from November 24th, 2025 to December 1st, 2025 in U.S. and Canada. Excludes clearance and gift cards. See details online.
Um The only thing between you and your best self is a start button. This Cyber Monday, explore the world with Nordic Track. From the peaks of Peru to the streets of Paris, every workout moves you somewhere new with iFit trainers leading the way. The equipment's amazing, smooth, quiet, and those screens make it all feel real. Ready to start your next workout adventure with the number one treadmill brand in the U.S.?
Shop NordicTrack.com for Cyber Monday savings. Nordic Track. Train anywhere, explore everywhere. What a matchup we got, y'all. This is that classic HBCU vibe.
Non-stop action, the band is rocking and the crowd lick, chants echo, drum beat, everybody showing that school pride. Game like this? Yeah, it calls for an ice-cold Coca-Cola. Ah, crisp and refreshing. That's a game changer right there.
Uh Mm, yeah. That taste always hits the right note, just like the band at halftime. And just like that, we're back at it. Passionate fans, school colors everywhere, and an ice cold Coca-Cola. That's a winning combo.
No matter the sport, no matter the yard, everybody knows. Fan work is thirsty work, so grab a Coca-Cola and keep that HBCU pride going. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Mm-hmm.
