Wives Not Slaves

Patriarchy and Modernity in the Age of Revolutions

Inbunden, Engelska, 2021

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Wives not Slaves begins with the story of John and Eunice Davis, a colonial American couple who, in 1762, advertised their marital difficulties in the New Hampshire Gazette—a more common practice for the time and place than contemporary readers might think. John Davis began the exchange after Eunice left him, with a notice resembling the ads about runaway slaves and servants that were a common feature of eighteenth-century newspapers. John warned neighbors against “entertaining her or harbouring her. . . or giving her credit.” Eunice defiantly replied, “If I am your wife, I am not your slave.” With this pointed but problematic analogy, Eunice connected her individual challenge to her husband’s authority with the broader critiques of patriarchal power found in the politics, religion, and literature of the British Atlantic world.Kirsten Sword’s richly researched history reconstructs the stories of wives who fled their husbands between the mid-seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries, comparing their plight with that of other runaway dependents. Wives not Slaves explores the links between local justice, the emerging press, and transatlantic political debates about marriage, slavery and imperial power. Sword traces the relationship between the distress of ordinary households, domestic unrest, and political unrest, shedding new light on the social changes imagined by eighteenth-century revolutionaries, and on the politics that determined which patriarchal forms and customs the new American nation would—and would not—abolish.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2021-04-15
Mått152 x 229 x 30 mm
Vikt653 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieAmerican Beginnings, 1500-1900
Antal sidor408
FörlagThe University of Chicago Press
ISBN9780226757483

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Rättshistoria inom Juridik
Amerikas historia inom Historia och arkeologi
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Introduction: “If I am your Wife, I am not your Slave” The Political Uses of Ancient PatriarchyDivorce, Jurisdiction, and the Location of LawDebt and the Paradox of Masculine Possessory Rights in the Age of Revolutions1. The Trials of Christopher and Elizabeth Lawson: An Introduction to Post-Reformation Debates about Marriage The Puritan Context of the Lawson MarriageArguments for Separation and DivorceWeighing the Charges: Credibility, Economic Misconduct, Sexual Crime, Racial Boundaries, and SlanderLaw’s Irresolution2. Submit or Starve: Manby v. Scott and the Making of a PrecedentDynastic Marriage and Family PoliticsDivorce in Interregnum EnglandManby v. Scott and the Domestication of PoliticsMaking a Precedent3. The Runaway Press Runaway Slaves and Servants and the Development of Colonial Labor SystemsWayward Wives, Colonial Law, and a Shift in PracticeThe Rise of the Press4. Marriage, Slavery, and Anglo-Imperial Jurisdictional Politics Disorder in the Legal System: Common Law, Equity, and Ecclesiastical JurisdictionColonial Household Conflicts, Local Law, and the Shadow of Imperial Norms in the 1720sAncient Patriarchy and the Invention of “Possessory Rights”Repercussions of Imperial Intervention in Marriage LawThe Rise of BlackstoneThe Echo Chamber of the 1760s5. A Matter of Credit: Husbands’ Claims“Lest she should run me in debt”: Credibility and Masculine Vulnerability“Behaved in a very unbecoming manner . . . and has eloped from me”: Implied Sexual Scandal“Some debates that have subsisted between us”: Domestic Violence“Will not be persuaded, either by me or her best friends, to return”: Preempting the Law“To her usual place of abode, and to her duty”: Husbands versus Communities6. “In Justice to my Character”: Wives’ RepliesA Change in Values or a Change in Venue? Patterns over Time and PlaceAnn Wood’s Advertisement“Endanger my life by dwelling with him”: Ann Wood’s Plea“On the Providence of God”: Prayers and Curses“The few remaining days of my disconsolate life”: Sentimental DependenceAuthorship, Agency, and Remedy7. Wives Not SlavesLiberty versus Loyalty: Marriage as Metaphor“If I am your Wife, I am not your Slave”“The Privilege of my Negroe Wench”“Her service & conjugal comfort . . . which he had a right to have”“We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems”8. Rethinking the Revolutionary Road to DivorceDivorce and the Jurisdictional and Personal Politics of RevolutionDivorce and Emancipation: A Useful False EquivalenceDivorce as a Woman’s Remedy: Revolutionary Expectations and the “First Families” of the United States“Down the Stream of Time Unnoticed”: Family Secrets, Family Stories, and Legal ChangeEpilogue: “The Rigour of the Old Rule”Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Legal EducationManby v. Scott in the Nineteenth CenturyAcknowledgmentsAbbreviations and Source NotesNotesIndex

“Wives not Slaves is a must-read for anyone interested in the interplay between popular culture and law. Readers will appreciate both the narrative power of its case studies and the elegance of its arguments. This powerful book not only deconstructs the feminist analogy of marriage as slavery, it reassesses the notion of expanding equality in the age of revolution. Better yet, it is filled with thought-provoking implications for our own age.”