Stray Wives - Mary Beth Sievens

Stray Wives

Marital Conflict in Early National New England
Buch | Hardcover
171 Seiten
2005
New York University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8147-4009-5 (ISBN)
92,25 inkl. MwSt
Examines marriage, familial gender relations, and the law through the lens of "elopement" notices. In conjunction with legal treatises, court records, and prescriptive literature, this book highlights the tenuous relationships among marriage law, marital ideals, and lived experience in the early Republic, an era of cultural and economic change.
Whereas my husband, Enoch Darling, has at sundry times used me in so improper and cruel a manner, as to destroy my happiness and endanger my life, and whereas he has not provided for me as a husband ought, but expended his time and money unadvisedly, at taverns . . . . I hereby notify the public that I am obliged to leave him.

Phebe Darling, January 13, 1796

Hundreds of provocative notices such as this one ran in New England newspapers between 1790 and 1830. These elopement notices--advertisements paid for by husbands and occasionally wives to announce their spouses' desertions as well as the personal details of their marital conflicts--testify to the difficulties that many couples experienced, and raise questions about the nature of the marital relationship in early national New England.

Stray Wives examines marriage, family, gender, and the law through the lens of these elopement notices. In conjunction with legal treatises, court records, and prescriptive literature, Mary Beth Sievens highlights the often tenuous relationships among marriage law, marital ideals, and lived experience in the early Republic, an era of exceptional cultural and economic change.

Elopement notices allowed couples to negotiate the meaning of these changes, through contests over issues such as gender roles, consumption, economic support, and property ownership. Sievens reveals the ambiguous, often contested nature of marital law, showing that husbands' superior status and wives' dependence were fluid and negotiable, subject to the differing interpretations of legal commentators, community members, and spouses themselves.

Mary Beth Sievens is assistant professor of history at SUNY Fredonia, and co-editor of Yankee Correspondence: Civil War Letters Between New England and the Home Front.

List of Tables ix Acknowledgments Introduction * 1 A "Disobedient, Clamorous" Wife: The Problem of Wifely Submission * 2 "A Trifling Sum": Economic Support and Consumer Spending in New England Marriages * 3 "The Duties of a Wife": The Meaning of Women's Work * 4 "The Wicked Agency of Others": Community Involvement and Marital Discord * 5 "Having Confidence in Her Own Abilities": Coping with Estrangement * 6 "Free and Clear from All Claims": Divorce and the Contradictory Nature of Women's Status Afterword: Settling "All Matters of Dispute": Marital Conflict, Negotiation, and Compromise Notes Select Bibliography Index bout the Author

Erscheint lt. Verlag 1.10.2005
Verlagsort New York
Sprache englisch
Maße 152 x 229 mm
Gewicht 386 g
Themenwelt Geschichte Teilgebiete der Geschichte Kulturgeschichte
Geschichte Teilgebiete der Geschichte Militärgeschichte
Recht / Steuern EU / Internationales Recht
Recht / Steuern Privatrecht / Bürgerliches Recht Familienrecht
Recht / Steuern Rechtsgeschichte
ISBN-10 0-8147-4009-X / 081474009X
ISBN-13 978-0-8147-4009-5 / 9780814740095
Zustand Neuware
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