Chattel marriage refers to a form of marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 in which the husband owned his wife, and any children of their union, in a legal relationship similar to that of slavery. The only meaningful difference was that there were a few legal restrictions to the husband's right to physically abuse or sell his wife or child. The term refers to the root word 'cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

', from which comes 'chattel', which refers to personal property

Personal property

Personal property, roughly speaking, is private property that is moveable, as opposed to real property or real estate. In the common law systems personal property may also be called chattels or personalty. In the civil law systems personal property is often called movable property or movables - any...

, as opposed to real property

Real property

In English Common Law, real property, real estate, realty, or immovable property is any subset of land that has been legally defined and the improvements to it made by human efforts: any buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, roads, various property rights, and so forth...

, such as land.

Most European noblewomen were party to chattel marriages, although if they brought money or property with them to the marriage, there were usually contracts involved, and "dower rights

Dowry

A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...

" were preserved to the wives. The only English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

wives who were neither wealthy nor chattels were princesses, the daughters of kings.

Sources

• What Do You Get When You Cross an 18th-Century English Archetype with 18th-Century Cherokee Mores Text of the September 25, 2004, address to the Cherokee Women's Pocahontas Club of Claremore, Oklahoma by Patricia Anne Dickerson Lemon