This book offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women's legal rights during a formative period of Anglo-American history. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women's legal knowledge and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives. The book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, and to laypeople interested in how women in the past navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them. It is packed with fascinating stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse to debt and estate litigation. Ultimately, it makes a remarkable contribution to our understandings of law, power and gender in the early modern world.
Autorentext
Lindsay R. Moore teaches European and World History at University of Missouri-Kansas City
Klappentext
Women before the court: the law and the limits of property in the Anglo-American World, 16001800 is a ground-breaking study of women in Britain and British America. Drawing from archival sources from both sides of the Atlantic, it offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women's legal rights during a formative period of Anglo-American law. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women's legal knowledge, and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, and husbands and wives. While these relationships had in the seventeenth century been defined by mutual obligations of authority and submission, the economic and legal developments of the eighteenth century gave women increasing opportunities to break the patriarchal mould. This book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, students of legal history, and to laypeople interested in how women in the past navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them. It is packed with fascinating (and sometimes shocking) stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse, to debt and estate litigation. This study adds a valuable contribution to our understandings of law, power, and gender in the early modern world.
Inhalt
Introduction: 'When Women goe to Law, the Devill is full of Businesse'Part I1 The varieties of Anglo-American law: property, patriarchy, and women's legal status in England and America2 Women as plaintiffs and defendants: the common law, equity, and ecclesiastical jurisdictionsPart II3 Masters and mistresses, servants and slaves: patriarchy and subordinate agency in the household4 Wives and (unwed) mothers: women's claims for financial support5 Inheritance and family feuds: the legal power of elite womenPart III6 Economic expansion and the erosion of patriarchyIndex