Probert on Kept Mistressess and Cohabitation Contracts

Rebecca Probert, University of Warwick School of Law, has posted From the Restoration to the Regency: Kept Mistresses and Legal Contracts. Here's the abstract:

This paper forms part of a wider project looking at the history of the legal treatment of cohabitants over the past 400 years. It begins with an examination of a set of cases often discussed under the umbrella of ‘cohabitation contracts’, and discusses how a contextual historical approach provides a different perspective on those cases. It then goes on to consider the legal approach to such arrangements, and the reasons, norms and assumptions that underpinned that approach. Finally, it discusses the relationship between law and behaviour – how far did the facts of these cases reflect the practice of the time?