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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Family & relationships
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Uncertain Unions - Marriage in England 1660-1753 (Hardcover)
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Uncertain Unions - Marriage in England 1660-1753 (Hardcover)
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In the highly acclaimed Road to Divorce, the first of a
three-volume history of marriage in early modern England, renowned
historian Lawrence Stone explored the different ways in which
marriage could take place, and analysed the confusion and
uncertainty surrounding the legality of the institution in its
various forms before the Marriage Act of 1753. Now, in Uncertain
Unions, Stone presents a multitude of case-studies showing just how
these courting and marrying couples were able to maneuver around
the ambiguities of marriage law in England, and the many reasons
they did so.
Based on a massive archive of court cases that illustrate the
extraordinary variety of legal, quasi-legal, and illegal ways of
making a marriage, here are stories of forced marriages,
clandestine marriages, prenuptial pregnancies, unwise courtship,
and other situations in which people often became entangled in a
web of moral and legal contradiction that could, and often did,
lead to personal catastrophe. Stone shows how, as a result of
glaring defects in the laws of marriage, very large numbers of
people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could never be
quite sure whether they were married or not. For instance, in Elmes
v. Elmes, we see a wife by ecclesiastical marriage, and a wife by
clandestine marriage fight over a man and his inheritance--in this
case, each woman could rightfully claim legitimacy as Mr. Elmes's
wife. Other cases reveal how a parish easily pinned the blame of
fatherhood onto an innocent man and thus the financial burden of a
bastard child onto another parish, and how a married man threw the
blame for a bastard child onto a fellow townsman, among many other
intriguing schemes.
Lawrence Stone illuminates the ways in which, during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, demands by individuals for
love and affection were starting to take precedence over family
interests in the search for a spouse. The studies he has drawn on
for Uncertain Unions enable us to see this moral transition played
out in the lives of the men and women within these pages. Revealing
various types of marriages, and the different levels of sexual
liaisons, Uncertain Unions is vivid human history, from the leading
historian on family life.
Praise for Road to Divorce
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 1990:
"There are many...gems to be found in this volume...from the
current spectacular levels of illegitimacy to the increased
economic dependence of women...Road to Divorce offers a sure-footed
and fascinating commentary."--New York Times Book Review
"His energy and his achievement are stupendous....Stone's
book...breathes new life into an old subject by advancing fresh
hypotheses and much fascinating new material."--The New York Review
of Books
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