In an interesting post at Double X, Helaine Olen explains that a new law aimed at limiting credit cards to college students might inadvertantly restrict credit cards to stay-at-home parents.

Olen also points out that women were only issued credit cards with their own names in the mid-70s.

It wasn’t so long ago that women were denied all independent access to banking, credit, and other financial services without their husbands’ permission. This changed with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in the 1970s, something we now so take for granted that it almost never occurs to us that a woman’s right to her own credit and credit history is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s so new that many of us over the age of 40 can actually recall our mother’s first individual credit cards and the reverence with which those cards were treated. (In our house, my mother’s first individual card was from Macy’s, a store she eventually would go on to work for as a saleswoman for almost a decade.)

Despite being in that age group, I'll admit that I didn't realize that women couldn't get credit cards in their own name until the 1970s. So, I called my mom to ask her about it. She had always managed the family finances, even endorsing my dad's checks for him, so her name on the credit card wasn't a big milestone for her, but she recognized the importance of women having their own credit history apart from their husband.

While it is very important to reform credit card practices with college aged students, the laws need to be written in such a way that don't impact on lesser-earning spouses.