The mothers of the nation must be fed, clothed, and sheltered.

What more could they possibly ask?
In return for permanent board and clothes, the woman was required to give her husband all of her property, real and personal.
What use had she for property?
Did she need it to support herself?
In case of war and pillage could she defend it?
Husband and wife were one--and that one was the man.

He was so much the one that the woman had literally no existence in the eyes of the law.
She not only did not possess any property; she could possess none.

Her husband could not give her any, because there could be no contract between a married pair.

A contract implies at least two people, and husband and wife were one.