The book explores the rise of civil divorce in Victorian England, the subsequent operation of a fault system of divorce based solely on the ground of adultery, and the eventual piecemeal repeal of the Victorian-era divorce law during the Interwar years. The legal history of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 is at the heart of the book. The Act had a transformative impact on English law and society by introducing a secular judicial system of civil divorce. This swept aside the old system of divorce that was only obtainable from the House of Lords and inadvertently led to the creation of the modern family justice system. The book argues that only through understanding the legal doctrine in its wider cultural, political, religious, and social context is it possible to fully analyse and assess the changes brought about by the Act. The major developments included the end of any pretence of the indissolubility of marriage, the statutory enshrinement of a double standard based on gender in the grounds for divorce, and the growth of divorce across all spectrums of English society. The Act was a product of political and legal compromise between conservative forces resisting the legal introduction of civil divorce and the reformers, who demanded married women receive equal access to the grounds of divorce. Changing attitudes towards divorce that began in the Edwardian period led to a gradual rejection of Victorian moral values and the repeal of the Act after 80 years of existence in the Interwar years. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers with an interest in legal history, family law, and Victorian studies.

The notion of human dignity is frequently, yet enigmatically, invoked in legal and political debates on sex work, where many people use it without much elaboration on exactly what they mean by it. Sex Work and Human Dignity: Law, Politics and Discourse sheds light on this enigma, by exploring how dignity-based discourses are used by those who write and talk about prostitution and also what role these discourses may play in shaping wider cultural understandings of sex work and sex workers. The book draws on political discourse theory and is international in its scope, with analysis of legal cases, textual sources, and empirical data gathered through interviews with activists from several different countries in the Global North and South. The book traces how the concept of dignity is used in a range of legal and political discourses on sex work and ultimately asks to what extent dignity-based discourses help to advance, or hinder, sex workers' social inclusion. This book will appeal to students and researchers interested in sex work and feminism, as well as those who study human dignity. Its interdisciplinary nature means it will appeal to those working in a range of disciplines, including law, sociology, philosophy, and political theory.

In this new and burgeoning field in legal and human rights thought, this edited collection explores, by reference to applied philosophy and case law, how the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has developed and presented a right to personal identity, largely through interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Divided into three parts, the collection interrogates: firstly, the construction of personal identity rights at the ECtHR; secondly, whose identity rights are protected; and thirdly, the limits of identity rights. The collection is the first in the Routledge Studies in Law and Humanity series. Contributions from nine leading and emerging legal scholars from the UK, Ireland and continental Europe explore how the right has developed, rights to identity and marriage, LGBTI+, persons with disabilities, religious and cultural issues and critical perspectives on the social construction and framing of the right. The collection is primarily aimed at scholars and advanced students, particularly of human rights law and its theory, Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, and those interested in ECtHR jurisprudence, and those interested in the connection between theories of inclusion, belonging and rights, including human rights lawyers.

This book critically examines the last few decades of discussion around sex and violence in the media, on social media, in the courtroom and through legislation. The discursive struggles over what constitutes "sexual violence", "victims" and "offenders" is normally determined through narratives: a selective ordering of events and participants. Centrally, the book investigates the social processes involved in the telling of stories of rape and its political implications. From a multidisciplinary feminist perspective, this volume explores what narratives about sexual violence are deemed legitimate at this historical juncture. This volume brings together feminist scholars working in a wide variety of disciplines including law, legal studies, history, gender studies, ethnology, media, criminology and social work from across the globe. Through situated empirical work, these scholars seek to understand currents movements between the criminal justice system and the cultural imagination.

This volume critically analyses Muslim Personal Law (MPL) in India and offers an alternative perspective to look at MPL and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) debate. Tracing the historical origins of this legal mechanism and its subsequent political manifestations, it highlights the complex nature of MPL as a sociological phenomenon, driven by context-specific social norms and cultural values. With expert contributions, it discusses wide-ranging themes and issues including MPL reforms and human rights; decoding of UCC in India; the contentious Triple Talaq bill and MPL; the Shah Bano case; Sharia (Islamic jurisprudence) in postcolonial India; women's equality and family laws; and MPL in the media discourse in India. The volume highlights that although MPL is inextricably linked to Sharia, it does not necessarily determine the everyday customs and local practices of Muslim communities in India This topical book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of law and jurisprudence, political studies, Islamic studies, Muslim Personal Law, history, multiculturalism, South Asian studies, sociology of religion, sociology of law and family law. It will also be useful to practitioners, policymakers, law professionals and journalists.

This book investigates the causes and consequences of image-based sexual abuse in a digital era. Image-based sexual abuse refers to the taking or sharing of nude or sexual photographs or videos of another person without their consent. It includes a diversity of behaviours beyond that of "revenge porn", such as the secret trading of nude or sexual images online; "upskirting", "downblousing" and other "creepshots"; blackmail or "sextortion" scams; the use of artificial intelligence to construct "deepfake" pornographic videos; threats to distribute photographs and videos without consent; and the taking or sharing of sexual assault imagery. This book investigates the pervasiveness and experiences of these harms, as well as the raft of legal and non-legal measures that have been introduced to better respond to and prevent image-based sexual abuse. The book draws on groundbreaking empirical research, including surveys in three countries with over 6,000 respondents and over 100 victim-survivor and stakeholder interviews. Guided by theoretical frameworks from gender studies, sociology, criminology, law and psychology, the authors argue that image-based sexual abuse is more commonly perpetrated by men than women, and that perpetration is higher among some groups, including younger and sexuality minority men. Although the motivations of perpetrators vary, a dominant theme to emerge was that of power and control. The gendered nature of the abuse means that it is best understood as a "continuum of sexual violence" because victim-survivors often experience it as part of a broader pattern of gendered harassment, violence and abuse. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, law and psychology. Image-based Sexual Abuse is also an essential resource for activists, legal and policy practitioners, technology companies and victim-survivors seeking to understand the deeply complex nature of intimate-image sharing in a digital era.

This volume examines how gender relations were regulated in ancient Near Eastern and biblical law. The textual corpus examined includes the various pertinent law collections, royal decrees and instructions from Mesopotamia and Hatti, and the three biblical legal collections. Peled explores issues beginning with the wide societal perspective of gender equality and inequality, continues to the institutional perspective of economy, palace and temple, the family, and lastly, sex crimes. All the texts mentioned or referred to in the book are given in an appendix, both in the original languages and in English translation, allowing scholars to access the primary sources for themselves. Law and Gender in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible offers an invaluable resource for anyone working on Near Eastern society and culture, and gender in the ancient world more broadly.

This is the first book to unpack the legal and ethical issues surrounding unauthorised intimate examinations during labour. The book uses feminist, socio-legal and philosophical tools to explore the issues of power, vulnerability and autonomy. The collection challenges the perception that the law adequately addresses different manifestations of unauthorised medical touch through the lens of women's experiences of unauthorised vaginal examinations during labour. The book unearths several broader themes that are of huge significance to lawyers and healthcare professionals such as the legal status of women and their bodies. The book raises questions about women's experiences during childbirth in hospital settings. It explores the status of women's bodies during labour and childbirth where too easily they become objectified, and it raises important issues around consent. The book highlights links to the law on sexual offences and women's loss of power under the medical gaze. Women's Birthing Bodies and the Law includes contributions from leading feminist philosophers, healthcare professionals, and academics in healthcare and law, and offers pioneering analysis relevant to lawyers and healthcare professionals with an interest in medical law and ethics; feminist theory; criminal law; tort law; and human rights law.

The Sexual Politics of Border Control conceptualises sexuality as a method of bordering and uncovers how sexuality operates as a key site for the containment, capture and regulation of movement. By bringing together queer scholarship on borders and migration with the rich archive of feminist, Black, Indigenous and critical border perspectives, it highlights how the heteronormativity of the border intersects with the larger dynamics of racial capitalism, imperialism and settler colonialism; reproductive inequalities; and the containment of contagion, disease and virality. Transnational in focus, this book includes contributions from and about different geopolitical contexts including histories of HIV in Turkey; the politics of reproduction in Palestine/Israel; settler colonialism and anti-Blackness in the United States; the sexual geographies of the Balkan and Southern Europe; the intimate politics of marriage migration between Vietnam and Canada; and sex work in Australia, the United States, France and New Zealand. This collection constitutes a key intervention in the study of border and migration that highlights the crucial role that sexual politics play in the reproduction and contestation of national border regimes. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

- Contains primary source documents - Will engage students on both side of the pro-life and pro-choice debate - Synthesizes a huge body of research in an easily digestible way for students

While an abundance of literature covers the right of states to defend themselves against external aggression, this is the first book dedicated to the right to personal self-defense in international law. Drawing on his extensive experience as a human rights practitioner and scholar, Dr. Hessbruegge sets out in careful detail the strict requirements that human rights impose on defensive force by law enforcement authorities, especially police killings in self-defense. The book also discusses the exceptional application of the right to personal self-defense in military-led operations, notably to contain violent civilians who do not directly participate in hostilities. Human rights also establish parameters on how broad or narrow the laws can be drawn on self-defense between private persons. Setting out the prevailing international standards, the book critically examines the ongoing trend to excessively broaden self-defense laws. It also refutes the claim that there is a human right to possess firearms for self-defense purposes. In extraordinary circumstances, the right to personal self-defence sharpens human rights and allows people to defend themselves against the state. Here the author establishes that international law gives individuals the right to forcibly resist human rights violations that pose a serious risk of significant and irreparable harm. At the same time, he calls into question prevailing state practice, which fails to recognize any collective right to organized armed resistance even when it constitutes the last resort to defend against genocide or other mass atrocities.

This volume critically analyses Muslim Personal Law (MPL) in India and offers an alternative perspective to look at MPL and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) debate. Tracing the historical origins of this legal mechanism and its subsequent political manifestations, it highlights the complex nature of MPL as a sociological phenomenon, driven by context-specific social norms and cultural values. With expert contributions, it discusses wide-ranging themes and issues including MPL reforms and human rights; decoding of UCC in India; the contentious Triple Talaq bill and MPL; the Shah Bano case; Sharia (Islamic jurisprudence) in postcolonial India; women's equality and family laws; and MPL in the media discourse in India. The volume highlights that although MPL is inextricably linked to Sharia, it does not necessarily determine the everyday customs and local practices of Muslim communities in India This topical book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of law and jurisprudence, political studies, Islamic studies, Muslim Personal Law, history, multiculturalism, South Asian studies, sociology of religion, sociology of law and family law. It will also be useful to practitioners, policymakers, law professionals and journalists.

Migrant women across Asia disproportionately work in precarious, insecure, and informal employment sectors that are subject to few regulations, pay low wages, and expose women to harm, of which domestic work is among the most prevalent. This book uses the cases of the Philippines and Sri Lanka to develop a comprehensive, intersectional, rights-based approach to better protect women migrant domestic workers against exploitation. As accounts of exploitation, gender-based violence, torture, and death among migrant domestic workers increase, the recognition and defence of their human and labour rights is an urgent necessity. The Philippines and Sri Lanka are two of the leading labour-sending states of women domestic workers in Asia, and their economies have become increasingly dependent on the remittances they send back home. Drawing on extensive original research this book argues that these two sending states are guilty of structural violence by sustaining a network of institutions, policies and practices, which serve to systematically disadvantage and discriminate against women migrant domestic workers. The research covers the entire migration process, from pre-departure, through to overseas employment, followed by return and reintegration. This book's innovative application of structural violence theory as a way to investigate the role of state institutions in labour-sending countries in the Global South will be of interest to researchers from across the fields of migration studies, gender studies, human rights law, and Asian Studies.

* Explores the many roles women play in the criminal justice system, including victims, justice-involved individuals, and professionals. * Designed to appeal to a generation standing on the threshold of change they believe in and helped to initiate, within the context of contemporary social movements such as the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter. * Features an empowerment approach that focuses on the intersection of gender, race, and class.

- Contains primary source documents - Will engage students on both side of the pro-life and pro-choice debate - Synthesizes a huge body of research in an easily digestible way for students

1. Intimate partner violence is a global issue that has received significant attention in recent years, animating political debate, policy reform and scholarly review making this book relevant to a wider audience, including scholars from the US, UK, Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. 2. This book will be of significant interest to policy makers, practitioners and advocates in the US, UK, Europe, North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand as well as being relevant for the vibrant international presence of criminology within higher education. 3. This book will be useful supplementary reading for a range of courses on gender, crime and justice, violence against women, and feminist criminology.

Contributing an original dimension to the significant body of published scholarship on women in 16th-century England, this study examines the largest corpus of women's private writings available to historians: their wills. In these, female voices speak out, commenting on their daily lives, on identity, gender, status, familial relationships and social engagement. Wills show women to have been active participants in a civil society, well aware of their personal authority and potential influence, whose committed actions during life and charitable strategies after death could and did impact the health of that society. From an intensive analysis of more than 1200 wills, this pioneering work focuses on women from all parts of the country and all strata of society, revealing an entire population of articulate, opportunistic, and capable individuals who found the spaces between the lines of the law and used those spaces to achieve personal goals. Author Susan James demonstrates how wills describe strategies for end-of-life care, create platforms of remembrance, and offer insights into the myriad occupational endeavors in which women were engaged. James illuminates how these documents were not simply instruments of bequest and inheritance, but were statements of power and control, catalogues of material culture from which we are able to gauge a woman's understanding of her own reality and the context that formed her environment. Wills were tools and the way in which women wielded these tools offers new ways to look at England in the 16th century and reveals the seminal role women played in its development.

From the rise of far-right regimes to the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic, recent years have brought global upheaval as well as the sedimentation of longstanding social inequalities. Analyzing the complexities of the current political moment in different geographic regions, this book addresses the paradoxical persistence of neoliberal policies and practices, in order to ground the pursuit of a more just world. Engaging theories of decoloniality, racial capitalism, queer materialism, and social reproduction, this book demonstrates the centrality of sexual politics to neoliberalism, including both social relations and statecraft. Drawing on ethnographic case studies, the authors show that gender and sexuality may be the site for policies like those pertaining to sex trafficking, which bundle together economics and changes to the structure of the state. In other instances, sexual politics are crucial components of policies on issues ranging from the growth of financial services to migration. Tracing the role of sexual politics across different localities and through different political domains, this book delineates the paradoxical assemblage that makes up contemporary neoliberal hegemony. In addition to exploring contemporary social relations of neoliberal governance, exploitation, domination, and exclusion, the authors also consider gender and sexuality as forces that have shaped myriad forms of community-based activism and resistance, including local efforts to pursue new forms of social change. By tracing neoliberal paradoxes across global sites, the book delineates the multiple dimensions of economic and cultural restructuring that have characterized neoliberal regimes and emergent activist responses to them. This innovative analysis of the relationship between gender justice and political economy will appeal to: interdisciplinary scholars in social and cultural studies; legal and political theorists; and the wide range of readers who are concerned with contemporary questions of social justice.

From the rise of far-right regimes to the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic, recent years have brought global upheaval as well as the sedimentation of longstanding social inequalities. Analyzing the complexities of the current political moment in different geographic regions, this book addresses the paradoxical persistence of neoliberal policies and practices, in order to ground the pursuit of a more just world. Engaging theories of decoloniality, racial capitalism, queer materialism, and social reproduction, this book demonstrates the centrality of sexual politics to neoliberalism, including both social relations and statecraft. Drawing on ethnographic case studies, the authors show that gender and sexuality may be the site for policies like those pertaining to sex trafficking, which bundle together economics and changes to the structure of the state. In other instances, sexual politics are crucial components of policies on issues ranging from the growth of financial services to migration. Tracing the role of sexual politics across different localities and through different political domains, this book delineates the paradoxical assemblage that makes up contemporary neoliberal hegemony. In addition to exploring contemporary social relations of neoliberal governance, exploitation, domination, and exclusion, the authors also consider gender and sexuality as forces that have shaped myriad forms of community-based activism and resistance, including local efforts to pursue new forms of social change. By tracing neoliberal paradoxes across global sites, the book delineates the multiple dimensions of economic and cultural restructuring that have characterized neoliberal regimes and emergent activist responses to them. This innovative analysis of the relationship between gender justice and political economy will appeal to: interdisciplinary scholars in social and cultural studies; legal and political theorists; and the wide range of readers who are concerned with contemporary questions of social justice.

Hindu women in India have independent right of ownership to property under the Law of Succession (The Hindu Succession Act, 1956). However, during the last five decades of its operation not many women have exercised their rights under the enactment. This volume addresses the issue of Hindu peasant women's ability to effectuate the statutory rights to succession and assert ownership of their share in family land. The work combines a critical evaluation of law with economic analyses into allocation of resources within the family as a means of addressing gender relations and explaining resulting gender inequalities.

Drawing on empirical data from women who pay for sexual services and those who provide services to women, this ground-breaking study is the first of its kind in the UK, detailing the experiences of women who pay for sex in an explicit, direct, prearranged way. Unlike previous research on clients, which has predominantly focused on men who buy sex or women who engage in romance tourism in places such as the Caribbean, this innovative research offers new and original insights into the demand side of commercial sex. Too often, it is assumed that only men pay for sex from women or other men. Women are assumed to be service providers and are unimaginable as clients. This book therefore offers a radical departure from existing scholarship on commercial sex. In addition, the book examines the experiences of couples who pay for commercial sex, a client group that has received scant investigation. The book explores women's reasons for their engagement in commercial sex services, their backgrounds and characteristics, their strategies for remaining safe and managing potential risks, as well as their sexual health strategies. The nature of sexual service bookings with women clients is also examined, exploring the types of services women seek, the places where bookings occur and the fess they pay. Finally, the experiences of men, women and trans sex workers who provide sexual services to women are examined. By drawing on our unique data and comparing it to the literature on men clients, we present our theory 'Converging Sexualities'. We argue that commercial sex is a site of behavioural convergence and that women clients are behaving in ways that could be described as masculine or feminine. Our study therefore offers new ways to understand sexuality. This book will be of interest to researchers in the field of sexuality, sex work and women's behaviour.

Despite recent reforms to the Turkish Penal Code, the country retains a high level of honour-based violence. This book analyses the motives behind honour-based violence in Turkey and examines the criminal justice system's approach to this type of crime. The work takes a socio-legal approach to explore the concepts of honour, patriarchy, and hierarchy, along with the roles of culture and tradition. It also examines how the legal system deals with this phenomenon, focusing on the decisions of the criminal courts in honour killing cases and drawing on prisoner interviews. These analyses show the extent to which the State follows a patriarchal approach when dealing with honour killings and inform recommendations for improving the legal and criminal justice system so as to deter crimes of this nature.

Using the UK as a case study the book aims to provide a detailed rationale for the tension between a policy perspective that tries to provide protection for victims of such practices through legislation and the need to better understand a phenomenon that constantly evolves as a result of new technology, disruptive adoption and social norms.

This book looks at the first eight Sanskrit law codes written in India, between 600 BCE and 570 ACE. It focuses on the legal, religious and ethical customs which were codified in this period and their impact on the social and political life of women. The volume analyzes texts such as the Dharma Sutras, the Arthasastra, the Manu Smriti, the Yajnyavalkya Smriti, and Narada Smriti, amongst others. It studies discourses on justice, conduct, virtues and duties, and how early laws were used to systematize patriarchy and the varna caste system in South Asia. It examines how patrimonial laws and male property rights highlighted social anxieties about female chastity and varna lineage, which led to the subordination of women and the lower varnas. These anxieties are most evident in codes from the late Vedic and early classical eras when diverse new settlers arrived upon the subcontinent. At this time, kings decentralized governance and allowed local groups to practice communal laws, while they meted out court justice with a specific law code. As the state became prosperous from trade conducted by merchants of diverse castes, sects, and classes, and social peace was ensured by officials from disparate backgrounds, kings began to rely upon a law code that aspired for equity above intolerance. These chapters examine heterodox Theravada Buddhism and Jainism, their origins in the oligarchic state, their impact on the royal Sanskritic state, as seen in canonical literature. They especially focus on women's roles in heterodox sects, and the emergence of new spaces for women, as such changes were adopted in disparate ways and degrees by other South Asian communities. The volume will be a useful resource for students and researchers of history, women and gender studies, social anthropology, sociology, and law. It will also serve as an information guide for readers who are interested in the political, and social life of women in early India

Gender Justice and the Law presents a collection of essays that examines how gender, as a category of identity, must continually be understood in relation to how structures of inequality define and shape its meaning. It asks how notions of "justice" shape gender identity and whether the legal justice system itself privileges notions of gender or is itself gendered. Shaped by politics and policy, Gender Justice essays contribute to understanding how theoretical practices of intersectionality relate to structures of inequality and relations formed as a result of their interaction. Given its theme, the collection's essays examine theoretical practices of intersectional identity at the nexus of "gender and justice" that might also relate to issues of sexuality, race, class, age, and ability.