Coverture also held sway in English-speaking colonies because of the influence of the English common law there. The way in which coverture operated across the common law world has been the subject of recent studies examining the subordinating effects of marriage for women across medieval and early modern England and North America, in a variety of legal contexts. It has been argued that in practice, most of the rules of coverture 'served not to guide every transaction but rather to provide clarity and direction in times of crisis or death.' Despite this flexibility, coverture remained a powerful tool of marital inequality for many centuries.