“Head and Master” Laws

Newsweek recently ran an article called "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage" (no, seriously.)

Many interesting points/arguments are made and there is a ton of feedback/outrage which they also posted. However, there was one thing mentioned in the article that absolutely shocked me and it has nothing to do with gay marriage.

From the article…

"…and by the 1970s most states had gotten rid of their "head and master" laws, which gave husbands the right to decide where a family would live and whether a wife would be able to take a job."

I honestly had no idea these laws existed, especially as recently as 1970s. I thought women gained property rights in the 1920s (although I do realize it was a lot harder for women to actually gain property or any assets being that the job market for women was virtually nonexistent)  I am interested to know how often these laws were enforced, especially in more recent times.  Does anyone know where I can find some more information on this?

The Wikipedia entry for "head and master laws" is pretty thin although they did direct me to a couple good articles by Stephanie Coontz.

A friend of mine told me that it was probably some obscure law that was never enforced and I would like to know if this was true or not.

Any help would be much appreciated!