Patriarchal marriage, aka marriage

Patriarchal marriage, aka marriage

Marriage in the 19th century was horrid. In her new anthology The Women’s Suffrage Movement, Sally Roesch Wagner sums it up nicely:

“Rape was legally institutionalized in marriage, as was wife battering.

“Women were considered dead in the law; they did not exist legally, so they were required to live with their husbands. A runaway wife could be tracked down and returned by the authorities. Or a husband could advertise that his wife had fled, and he no longer had any responsibility for her financially. In other words, she had nothing, since he legally owned everything.”

Thanks to the marriage equality movement, new feminist histories of marriage abound. Popular & academic books on the prison that was (is?) marriage by Nancy Cott, Katherine Franke, Elizabeth Gilbert, EJ Graff, Nancy Polikoff.... Check ‘em out. @ProfKFranke @ejgraff @GilbertLiz 

Daily Suffragist

19/12/2019