1st Edition

Women and Property In Early Modern England

By Amy Louise Erickson Copyright 1995
    324 Pages
    by Routledge

    324 Pages
    by Routledge

    This ground-breaking book reveals the economic reality of ordinary women between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. Drawing on little-known sources, Amy Louise Erickson reconstructs day-to-day lives, showing how women owned, managed and inherited property on a scale previously unrecognised. Her complex and fascinating research, which contrasts the written laws with the actual practice, completely revises the traditional picture of women's economic status in pre-industrial England. Women and Property is essential reading for anyone interested in women, law and the past.

    Part 1 Background; Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Law, society and documents; Part 2 Maids; Chapter 3 Upbringing; Chapter 4 Inheritance; Chapter 5 Portions and marriage; Part 3 Wives; Chapter 6 The nature of marriage settlements; Chapter 7 Marriage settlements in the Court of Chancery; Chapter 8 Marriage settlements in probate documents; Part 4 Widows; Chapter 9 Widows of men who made wills; Chapter 10 Widows of men who did not make wills; Chapter 11 How lone women lived; Chapter 12 Lone women's wills;

    Biography

    Amy Louise Erickson

    'A major contribution to our understanding of the early modern family.' - Katherine French, SUNY-New Paltz

    'Amy Erickson has produced a rich and finely nuanced study of women and property in early modern England. ... This is an important work and its conclusions with regard to both theory and practice should modify facile stereotypes still present in the literature on women and the family in early modern times.' - Gender and History

    'An impressive study ... a scholar of the first rank.' - Germaine Greer, The Guardian

    'Extremely stimulating.' - Antonia Fraser, The Times