Women and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century EnglandThe 'bonds of matrimony' describes with cruel precision the social and political status of married women in the nineteenth century. Women of all classes had only the most limited rights of possession in their own bodies and property yet, as this remarkable book shows, women of all classes found room to manoeuvre within the narrow limits imposed on them. Upper-class women frequently circumvented the onerous limitations of the law, while middle-class women sought through reform to change their legal status. For working-class women, such legal changes were irrelevant, but they too found ways to ameliorate their position. Joan Perkin demonstrates clearly in this outstanding book, full of human insights, that women were not content to remain inferior or subservient to men. |
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accepted according affection allowed aristocratic became believed better called Caroline cause child church Common concerned considered continued Court daughter death described divorce domestic early earnings England English equality example expected factory father feeling friends gave girls give happy husband important income interest keep labourers Lady later less lives London look Lord majority marriage married women means middle middle-class moral mother needed never nineteenth century parents political poor possible Prince Queen reason regarded relations remained reported respectable rough rural seems separate servants sexual social society things thought told took towns usually wages wanted wife wife’s wish wives woman working-class writing wrote young