Within the sphere of the post-Imperial codes, as is predictable, property is the focus of the majority of conversations around marriage and marital life. But the negotiations that were explored concerning betrothal and at the point of marriage did not stop there, continuing throughout the life of the relationship. These careful negotiations around property ownership, control and division can be useful as they can illuminate the expected legal boundaries of the marital relationship. In particular, it is useful to use these laws to explore the power balance within legal marriage: if women were not allowed to own, control or dispose of property then this places the husband automatically in a powerful position over his wife, but also in a position of responsibility to care for her and her property. This property is separated into that which she has inherited and that which comes to the marriage as part of her wedding gifts. When property consists of land and people and property, this could potentially be a large undertaking.

The legislation covering the financial status of the husband and wife in relation to their own assets and their partners is, as with most things in the post-Imperial codes, obscure and complex, and their modern-day interpretation has been equally complicated. The earliest codes are the least detailed, with the Lib. Con. stating very simply that the husband controlled both his and his wife's property, ‘just as he has power over her, so also over her property and all her possessions’. Katherine Fischer Drew has argued in several places that this law did not in fact mean what it appears to – that women had no control over their property – but meant instead that women subject to Burgundian law could in fact themselves control their ‘personal property,’ based on laws which indicate that girls and women could write legally binding wills. However, the laws she refers to are very clear in referring only to a woman's right to compose a will, own property and have legal competence. They do not refer to a woman’s right to dispose of her property while living, whether to sell it or else to purchase more, while the former law is unequivocal.