Marital Violence

Exposing the 'hidden' history of marital violence between the Restoration and the mid-nineteenth century.

Auteur

Elizabeth Foyster is Lecturer in History at Clare College, Cambridge. She previously published Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage (1999).

Texte du rabat

In a time before divorce was generally accepted and husbands assumed the right to beat their wives, Elizabeth Foyster examines the variety of ways in which men, women and children responded to marital violence. This issue raised central questions concerning the extent of men's authority over other family members, the limitations of women's property rights, and the problems of access to divorce and child custody. Although opinion about the legitimacy of marital violence continued to be divided, Foyster demonstrates that beliefs determinig intolerable or cruel behavior had changed significantly by the nineteenth century.

Résumé
Exposes the 'hidden' history of marital violence and its place in English family life between the Restoration and the mid-nineteenth century. In a time when husbands were believed to have the right to beat their wives, it examines the ways in which family members responded to marital violence.

Contenu

1. Rethinking the histories of violence; 2. Resisting violence; 3. Children and marital violence; 4. Beyond conjugal ties and spaces; 5. The origins of professional responses.