Via the
Canadian Legal History Blog, we have word that McGill-Queen's University Press has published
Married Women and the Law: Coverture and the Common Law World, edited by
Tim Stretton (Saint Mary's University) and
Krista J. Kesselring (Dalhousie University). The Press describes the book as follows:
Explaining
the curious legal doctrine of "coverture," William Blackstone famously
declared that "by marriage, husband and wife are one person at law."
This "covering" of a wife's legal identity by her husband meant that the
greatest subordination of women to men developed within marriage. In
England and its colonies, generations of judges, legislators, and
husbands invoked coverture to limit married women's rights and property,
but there was no monolithic concept of coverture and their
justifications shifted to fit changing times: Were husband and wife lord
and subject? Master and servant? Guardian and ward? Or one person at
law?
The essays in Married Women and the Law offer new insights into the
legal effects of marriage for women from medieval to modern times.
Focusing on the years prior to the passage of the Divorce Acts and
Married Women's Property Acts in the late nineteenth century,
contributors examine a variety of jurisdictions in the common law world,
from civil courts to ecclesiastical and criminal courts. By bringing
together studies of several common law jurisdictions over a span of
centuries, they show how similar legal rules persisted and developed in
different environments. This volume reveals not only legal changes and
the women who creatively used or subverted coverture, but also
astonishing continuities.Accessibly written and coherently presented,
Married Women and the Law is an important look at the persistence of one
of the longest lived ideas in British legal history.
Contributors
include Sara M. Butler (Loyola), Marisha Caswell (Queen's), Mary Beth
Combs (Fordham), Angela Fernandez (Toronto), Margaret Hunt (Amherst),
Kim Kippen (Toronto), Natasha Korda (Wesleyan), Lindsay Moore (Boston),
Barbara J. Todd (Toronto), and Danaya C. Wright (Florida).
A few blurbs:
“Married
Women and the Law makes a significant contribution to conceptualizing
coverture’s ever changing impact on women and families and each chapter
is interesting and provocative in its own right.” -- Amy Froide
“A much needed and powerful study of married women’s status in law.” -- Joanne Bailey
More information is available
here.
