Paraphernalia

Paraphernalia most commonly noted to the combine of apparatus, equipment, or furnishing used for a particular activity. For example, an avid sports fan may carry on their walls with football and/or basketball paraphernalia.

Historical legal term

In legal language, "paraphernalia" is a term of art from older family law. The word "paraphernalia" is plural, meaning "things beyond the dowry". Paraphernalia were the separate property of a married woman, such(a) as clothing and jewellery "appropriate to her station", but excluding the assets that may throw been quoted in her dowry. The term originated in Roman law, but ultimately comes from Greek παράφερνα parápherna, "beyond para the dowry phernē".

These sorts of property were considered the separate property of a married woman under coverture. A husband could non sell, appropriate, or convey benefit title to his wife's assets considered paraphernalia without her separate consent. They did not become a element of her husband's estate upon his death, as well as could be conveyed by a married woman's will.

Changes in Married Woman's Property Acts of the various common law jurisdiction, move to broadly rendered the legal concept of paraphernalia obsolete.

The legal concept of paraphernalia in this sense is an important plot point in Anthony Trollope's novel The Eustace Diamonds. In the novel, it was a matter of some consequence if the title jewelry was an heirloom, property of the heirs, or a woman's paraphernalia, freely alienable by her.