Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe (Hardcover)

Fresh approaches to how premodern women were viewed in legal terms, demonstrating how this varied from country to country and across the centuries. There has been a tendency in scholarship on premodern women and the law to see married women as hidden from view, obscured by their husbands in legal records. This volume provides a corrective view, arguing that the extent to which the legal principle of coverture applied has been over-emphasized. In particular, it points up differences between the English common law position, which gave husbands guardianship over their wives and their wives' property, and the position elsewhere in northwest Europe, where wives' property became part of a community of property. Detailed studies of legal material from medieval and early modern England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Ghent, Sweden,Norway and Germany enable a better sense of how, when, and where the legal principle of coverture was applied and what effect this had on the lives of married women. Key threads running through the book are married women'srights regarding the possession of moveable and immovable property, marital property at the dissolution of marriage, married women's capacity to act as agents of their husbands and households in transacting business, and married women's interactions with the courts. Cordelia Beattie is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh; Matthew Frank Stevens is Lecturer in Medieval History at Swansea University Contributors: Lars Ivar Hansen, Shennan Hutton, Lizabeth Johnson, Gillian Kenny, Mia Korpiola, Miriam Muller, S.C. Ogilvie, Alexandra Shepard, Cathryn Spence.

General

Imprint:	The Boydell Press
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Gender in the Middle Ages
Release date:	July 2013
First published:	2013
Editors:	Cordelia Beattie • Matthew Frank Stevens
Contributors:	Alexandra Shepard • Cathryn Spence (Contributor) • Cordelia Beattie • Gillian Kenny • Lars Ivar Hansen • Lizabeth Johnson (Contributor) • Matthew Frank Stevens • Mia Korpiola
Dimensions:	234 x 156 x 27mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover - Cloth over boards
Pages:	260
ISBN-13:	978-1-84383-833-3
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > World history > 500 to 1500 Books > Humanities > History > European history > General Books > Law > Laws of other jurisdictions & general law > Private, property, family law > Family law Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > Women's studies > General Books > History > European history > General Books > History > World history > 500 to 1500 Promotions
LSN:	1-84383-833-8
Barcode:	9781843838333

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!