DOCSLIB.ORG

Coverture and Vocie in Mary Wollstonecraft's Maria And

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Coverture and Vocie in Mary Wollstonecraft's Maria And ABSTRACT MARRIED SILENCE: COVERTURE AND VOCIE IN MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT’S MARIA AND JANE AUSTEN’S PERSUASION This thesis explores the relationship between the marital common law of coverture and the expression of women’s audible and rhetorical voices. This law, which contributed to the silencing of women in both public and private spaces, is portrayed in the novels of Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen. Taking two different approaches in discussing marriage, these authors focus on wives’ lack of voice and power. Wollstonecraft’s Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman illustrates the wrongs women suffer at the hands of tyrannical husbands, while Austen’s Persuasion focuses on the importance of women’s voices, emphasizing the rights women enjoy because of weak or absent husbands. Wollstonecraft fails to present a sustainable environment where her heroine can exercise autonomy outside of patriarchal power or permission and Austen’s production of marriages in which husbands are dependent upon their wives suggests that freedom in marriage only comes with weak husbands. Ultimately, neither author is able to present a realistic, applicable representation of marriage where women have equal power and voice, illuminating just how complex the issue was, and still is, for women. Misty Pauline Lawrenson May 2018 MARRIED SILENCE: COVERTURE AND VOCIE IN MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT’S MARIA AND JANE AUSTEN’S PERSUASION by Misty Pauline Lawrenson A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno May 2018 APPROVED For the Department of English: We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree. Misty Pauline Lawrenson Thesis Author Steve Adisasmito-Smith (Chair) English Ruth Jenkins English Melanie Hernandez English For the University Graduate Committee: Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship. Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me. Signature of thesis author: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my chair, Dr. Steve Adisasmito-Smith, for taking me in halfway through this project and guiding me toward completion. His encouragement, insight, and guidance gave me the tools and confidence I needed to write what I knew I could write. I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Ruth Jenkins and Dr. Melanie Hernandez, for their feedback and direction as I revised, refined, and expanded my argument. To Dr. Jenkins, who I first met 14 years ago in an Introduction to Literature class, you are the first professor who told me that my voice counted and the ideas I had about literature were valuable. Thank you for helping me to remember that my voice still matters. To Dr. Toni Wein, thank you for introducing me to Mary Wollstonecraft and the laws which surrounded women and for the great amount of time you gave. I thank my parents for their unwavering and unconditional support. To my husband, Dustin, when I first started on this journey, I don’t think either of us really knew what we would go through and where it would lead us. I am comforted to have you by my side. Thank you for being willing to reevaluate the traditional roles of husband and wife and for stepping up to the task of taking care of our children, and for doing dinners, bedtime, and dishes. Thank you for your support in those dark moments, your strength in the trying ones, your cheers on the bright days and your love and support through it all, I love you. To my youngest and only son, Thaddeus, you have been a significant part of my master’s experience. I will forever treasure our drives to school together, playing endless games of “I spy” and “knock-knock.” Finally, to my girls, Brooklyn and Lillian, my hope is that you will never lose your voice, that you will stand tall and always, always speak your mind. You motivate me to move forward—I dedicate this work to you. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCING VOICE .................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 2: WOMEN AND THE LAW OF COVERTURE ............................. 13 CHAPTER 3: WOLLSTONECRAFT’S COVERED MARIA ............................. 20 CHAPTER 4: AUSTEN’S SILENCED ANNE ..................................................... 40 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUDING BUT NOT DONE SPEAKING ........................... 59 WORKS CITED ..................................................................................................... 63 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCING VOICE When asked to reflect on my childhood and teenage years, I repeatedly recall the same image: I am standing with a group a people, screaming as loud as I can but not a sound is heard. The anger and frustration I see on my face is compounded with the claustrophobia and powerlessness I feel as I strain to hear my own soundless voice. The longer I stand silently screaming, the more people crowd around me, talking over and above me; neither noticing nor hearing what I so desperately want to say. Some feminist authors, writing about female experience, address women’s oppression in both explicit and implicit ways. In their writings, they use their own voices to critique practices that damaged and silenced women. Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen, separated by about 20 years are two such writers whose approaches and methods are different, both address the problematic issues of women’s subjugation and voice in marriage. Wollstonecraft explicitly spoke out about women’s suppressed position most notably in her prose, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) while Austen and her marriage plot novels took a more implicit route. Although it is not common to discuss these authors side by side, doing so reveals two writers who challenge their readers to reconsider the institution of marriage as it was commonly practiced, the effect it had upon women’s voices, and the moves women made in an attempt to maintain and regain their voice. The need to study and speak about women’s voices in marriage is motivated by a frequent phenomenon seen throughout history and more disturbingly, witnessed in the twenty-first century. When some women become engaged to be married, often behavior and personality change. I have frequently 2 2 observed a once outgoing, sometimes even irreverent, fun young lady quickly become reserved, quiet, and timid. She may express feelings of happiness, yet she defers to her fiancée repeatedly, he becomes involved with everything she does, and after they marry, her friends never see her. She abandons her educational aspirations and career goals, trading them in for laundry soap and bathroom cleaner, criticized when she laments what she has lost. She struggles to move past conservative teachings about the roles of husband and wife in a family; roles summed up in the phrase, “Husbands are the head of the home and the wife is the heart.” A statement such as this implies a man is responsible for taking care of his family, to preside over his home, and his wife is a nurturer, taking care of the children and seeing to a clean home and healthy meals. As if a wife is incapable of being in a position of power and influence and a husband void of tender feelings and actions, young girls are instructed that their primary responsibility will be in the house, cornered and silenced into domestic roles. Many wives accept their fate and stifled voices. When considering voice and what it means, it is crucial to understand that I define it and refer to it in two different ways: rhetorical and audible. The audible voice is the vocal noise a woman generates when she speaks, the fluctuation of speech, pitch, and volume. It is a sound she makes in both public and private spaces. Rhetorical voice is the meaning and influence of her audible voice; it is representative of her thoughts, desires, persuasions, and autonomy. A key aspect of a woman’s rhetorical voice is the power it displays through motivation to action. Unfortunately, few women have been able to fully express such a voice. Even though historically most women possessed an audible voice, that voice was restricted as far as when it could be revealed and limited in what it stated. In other words, although a woman was granted permission to use her audible voice, she 3 3 usually could only say those things society deemed appropriated. Even though she spoke, her rhetorical voice was silenced because if her rhetorical voice expressed that which was contrary to acceptable speech, it was almost never given a platform for expression, nor did it empower action. In those cases when a woman’s voice was either manipulated or completely silenced, a few women often looked for alternate ways to communicate their rhetorical voices. In my search to understand why women struggled with the expression of both their audible and rhetorical voices, I discovered the marital common law of coverture. Under the law of coverture, husbands gain control and possession of their wives’ movable goods, the wife does not possess a legal identity, nor does she have rights to her own money. Coverture only applied to married women (femes covert), as single women (femes sole), were able to maintain control of their own possession, moveable goods, and income. This law, often referred to as a legal fiction, nevertheless practiced as common law in Early Modern England, lasted legally until the enactment of the 1870 Married Women’s Property Act, saturated English culture and challenged women’s autonomy and voice.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Crisis of Child Custody: a History of the Birth of Family Law in England, 11 Colum
    University of Florida Levin College of Law UF Law Scholarship Repository Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 1-1-2002 The rC isis of Child Custody: A History of the Birth of Family Law in England Danaya C. Wright University of Florida Levin College of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub Part of the Common Law Commons, Family Law Commons, and the Women Commons Recommended Citation Danaya C. Wright, The Crisis of Child Custody: A History of the Birth of Family Law in England, 11 Colum. J. Gender & L. 175 (2002), available at http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/219 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at UF Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UF Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CRISIS OF CHILD CUSTODY: A HISTORY OF THE BIRTH OF FAMILY LAW IN ENGLAND DANAYA C. WRIGHr Ask-may the victim of a hasty vow Ne'er seek release nor remedy? Ah no! A maiden once enclosed in nuptial ties Must wear herfetters till she sins or dies; And suffer as she may, within these bounds, No curefor sorrows and no balm for wounds. Such finished torture England'scode can boast; A formalframework, which at woman's cost, Flings a disguise o'er ruthless tyranny, And drugs men 's conscience with a special tie. 1 -Harriet Grote (1853) Associate Professor of Law at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law.
    [Show full text]
  • Individualism, Privacy, and Poverty in Determining the Best Interests of the Child
    Oberlin Digital Commons at Oberlin Honors Papers Student Work 2019 Individualism, Privacy, and Poverty in Determining the Best Interests of the Child Dena Jolie Miller Oberlin College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors Part of the Political Science Commons Repository Citation Miller, Dena Jolie, "Individualism, Privacy, and Poverty in Determining the Best Interests of the Child" (2019). Honors Papers. 132. https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors/132 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Digital Commons at Oberlin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Papers by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons at Oberlin. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 Individualism, Privacy, and Poverty in Determining the Best Interests of the Child Dena Miller, Politics and Law & Society, Harry Hirsch Honors Thesis April 12, 2019 Abstract This thesis explores the guiding legal standard in child custody law, that custody should be decided ‘in the best interests of the child.’ I begin with the most common critique of the best interests standard: that it is too vague, allowing for the personal biases of judges to play too great a role in custody decision-making. I challenge this critique by examining the standard in a different context, shifting from divorce proceedings to the child welfare system, to ask how the vagueness of the standard is mobilized differently in child protective proceedings. I argue that it is not the individual biases of judges, but rather the historic, systemic biases, enabled by the vague standard, which predominantly harm families and children.
    [Show full text]
  • A Study of the History of Child Protection Law and Jurisprudence in Nova Scotia
    ON THE “POVERTY OF RESPONSIBILITY”: A STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF CHILD PROTECTION LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE IN NOVA SCOTIA by Ilana Dodi Luther Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia August 2015 © Copyright by Ilana Dodi Luther, 2015 DEDICATION PAGE To my husband. ii Table of Contents ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction: ..................................................................................... 1 On the “Poverty of Responsibility”: A History of Family Law for the Poor ............. 1 Child Protection Law and Families in Poverty ....................................................... 8 A Critical Historical Analysis of Child Protection Law in Nova Scotia .................. 20 A Feminist Understanding of the Social Regulation of Families in Poverty............ 27 Psychiatry and the Social and Legal Regulation of the Family in Poverty ............. 36 Chapter 2: 19th Century Nova Scotia: The Breakdown of the Victorian Family and the Emergence of Cruelty to Children as a Legal Problem ................... 59 The Legal Regime of the Victorian Family ........................................................... 64 Proliferation of Domestic Relations Legislation in Late 19th Century Nova Scotia .................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Student Surveys of Policy Issues Related to Children. INSTITUTION Boston Univ., Mass
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 113 234 SO, 008 611 AUTHOR Rebelsky, Freda 0 TITLE Student Surveys of Policy Issues Related to Children. INSTITUTION Boston Univ., Mass. School of Law. SPONS AGENCY Office of Child Development (DREW), Washington, D.C. PUB DATE 72 NOTE 109p. EDRS PRICE 8F-$0.76 HC-$5.70 Plus Postage DESCRIPTORS Child Advocacy; Child Care; *Child Development; Educational Research; *Field Studies; Health. Services; Higher Education; Interdisciplinary Approach; Legal Aid; Legal Problems; Mental Health; *Program Evaluation; *Research Projects; *Social Problems; Student Projects ABSTRACT This project is a prototype study which investigates the interaction of graduate students from different disciplinary backgrounds and different educational institutions in exploring social and public policy issues rela,ted to children. The results and evaluation of the research program are presented in this document. Divided into three teams, the students examined three social issues in relation to child development:(11 legal probltms of providing medical care to minors; (2) treatment of children in state mental health facilities; and (3) advocacy and lobbying for children. Three reports from these student teams follow the explanation of the Study. The report concludes that small and delimited research projects can profitably and successfully be Completed,by small teams of graduate students provided that the scope of the research is carefully delineate-d-..and established in advance,, the groups are small and the tasks well structured, and the projedts are closely supervised by staff. (Author/JR) *****************************************************4***************** Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every eff4-i * *.to obtain the best copy available.
    [Show full text]
  • Revisiting the Presumption of Legitimacy in the Same-Sex Couples Era
    ARTICLES PRESUMING WOMEN: REVISITING THE PRESUMPTION OF LEGITIMACY IN THE SAME-SEX COUPLES ERA ∗ SUSAN FRELICH APPLETON INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 228 I. TRACING THE PRESUMPTION’S TRAJECTORY IN TRADITIONAL CASES .................................................................................................. 232 II. PRESUMING WOMEN: LESBIAN COUPLES............................................ 237 A. A Gendered Rule in an Increasingly Gender-Neutral Regime .... 237 B. Extending the Presumption.......................................................... 240 C. Revisiting the Presumption’s Objectives and Policies in This New Context ................................................................................ 242 1. Child Welfare ........................................................................ 243 2. Public Funds.......................................................................... 246 3. Public Norms: The Model Family......................................... 248 4. Patriarchy and Husbands’ Vanity.......................................... 251 a. “Biological Reality” Versus Appearances...................... 251 b. Ownership of Children .................................................... 255 III. THE PROBLEM CHILD: GAY MALE COUPLES....................................... 260 A. Extending the Presumption to Men: Ignoring Gestation or Recognizing Three Legal Parents................................................ 262 B. A Limited Extension: Presuming
    [Show full text]
  • North Carolina Trial Judges'
    NORTH CAROLINA TRIAL JUDGES’ BENCH BOOK DISTRICT COURT VOLUME 1 FAMILY LAW 2019 Edition Chapter 1 Spousal Agreements In cooperation with the School of Government, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by Cheryl D. Howell and Jan S. Simmons This chapter is one of ten chapters in North Carolina Trial Judges’ Bench Book, ISBN 978-1-56011-955-5. Preparation of this bench book was made possible by funding from the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts, as administered by the School of Government. Copyright © 2019 School of Government, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill blank TOC This page intentionally left blank chapter opening 1 TOC Chapter 1: Spousal Agreements I. Premarital Agreements . 3 IV. Separation Agreements . 20 A . Applicable Statutes . 3 A . G S . 52-10 1 . 20 B . Matters That May Be Included in a Premarital Agreement B . Jurisdiction . .. 21 under the Uniform Act . 4 C . Form of the Agreement . 22 C . Construing a Premarital Agreement . 5 D . Requisites and Validity of Separation Agreements . 27 D . Modifying or Revoking a Premarital Agreement . 7 E . Construing a Separation Agreement . 29 E . Effect of a Premarital Agreement on Various Rights or F . Effect of a Separation Agreement on Various Rights or Interests of the Parties . 8 Interests of the Parties . 31 F . Enforcing a Premarital Agreement . 11 G . Modifying a Separation Agreement . 40 II. Postnuptial Agreements . 13 H . Reconciliation . 49 A . Generally . .. 13 I . Enforcing a Separation Agreement . 54 B . Requisites and Validity of Postnuptial Agreements . 14 J . Effect of Bankruptcy . 78 C . Enforcement of a Postnuptial Agreement .
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Coverture
    CULTURAL COVERTURE: AN EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF EARLY AMERICAN MARRIAGE LAWS ON CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WOMEN by SUMMER ALLISION STEIB A THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Women’s Studies in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2009 Copyright Summer Allison Steib 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT Under the system of coverture a married woman’s civil identity was covered by her husband’s civil identity and she was viewed to be civilly dead. The system of coverture originated in Europe and was part of the English Common Law system. When settlers first colonized what would eventually become the United States, they adopted English Common Law and with it the system of coverture. Through the system of coverture, married women in the United States had no independent civil identity and they were excluded from the rights and obligations of citizenship. For over two hundred years, activists worked to challenge and change the system of coverture and the cultural attitudes and assumptions that were reflected through coverture. Though legal coverture ended in the closing decades of the twentieth century, the cultural attitudes and assumptions on which coverture was based are still impacting women and limiting their full freedom and agency. This thesis examines the historical foundations of marriage laws/coverture in Colonial America and traces their progression from laws to the cultural practices that women in contemporary America must navigate and negotiate in their lives. ii DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my children, Rowan and Ani, in hopes that you will always question, challenge and strive to change cultural practices, laws and attitudes that perpetuate discrimination and oppression.
    [Show full text]
  • From Coverture to Contract: Engendering Insurance on Lives
    From Coverture to Contract: Engendering Insurance on Lives Mary L. Heent ABSTRACT: In the 1840s, state legislatures began modifying the law of marital status to ease the economic distress of widows and children at the family breadwinner's death. Insurance-related exceptions to the common law doctrine of "marital unity" under coverture permitted married women to enter into insurance contracts and protected life insurance proceeds from their husbands' creditors. These early insurance-related statutory exceptions to coverture introduced an important theoretical question that persisted for the rest of the nineteenth century-and into the next-as broader legal and social reforms took hold. How could equality of contract for married women be reconciled with the traditional dependencies of the home? Equality of contract also introduced the practical economic problem of how the lives of women could be valued apart from their husbands when the law otherwise enforced their economic dependency. t Professor of Law, University of Richmond. I am grateful for financial support for this project from the law school's Hunton & Williams Summer Research Endowment Fund and for permission from Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School to cite information from the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company Collection and the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company Collection. Thanks to archivists and librarians at the Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies, Boston Public Library, Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Library of Congress for guiding me through their collections, and to University of Richmond law librarians Gail Zwimer and Suzanne Cornell for their assistance in locating additional research materials.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstract Women's Marital Property in Shakespeare's
    ABSTRACT WOMEN’S MARITAL PROPERTY IN SHAKESPEARE’S ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL AND MEASURE FOR MEASURE by Christian Brant Williams Many scholars have investigated the bed trick and its significance within the context of gender and sexuality in two of Shakespeare’s plays, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure. Yet, I contend that an analysis and discussion of the physical bed is as important as the trick itself. Just as the trick has brought about important discussions relating to men’s and women’s sexual experiences in the early modern era, an examination of the physical bed and Helena’s and Mariana’s return thereto, illuminates the different yet equally important issues surrounding early modern women’s marital property. In this thesis, I will demonstrate that despite restrictive and limiting coverture laws of the time, both plays indicate that early modern married women were experiencing more autonomy over their own persons and possessed more rights to property than is often associated with or discussed in relation to the early modern era. WOMEN’S PROPERTY IN SHAKESPEARE’S ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL AND MEASURE FOR MEASURE Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Christian Brant Williams Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2017 Advisor: Cynthia Klestinec Reader: Katharine Gillespie Reader: James Bromley ©2017 Christian Brant Williams This thesis titled WOMEN’S MARITAL PROPERTY IN SHAKESPEARE’S ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL AND MEASURE FOR MEASURE by Christian Brant Williams has been approved for publication by The College of Arts and Science and Department of English ____________________________________________________ Cynthia Klestinec _______________________________________________________ Katharine Gillespie __________________________________________________ James Bromley Table of Contents Dedication .....................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Return of Coverture Allison Anna Tait University of Richmond School of Law
    Michigan Law Review First Impressions Volume 114 2016 The Return of Coverture Allison Anna Tait University of Richmond School of Law Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr_fi Part of the Family Law Commons, Judges Commons, Law and Gender Commons, and the Supreme Court of the United States Commons Recommended Citation Allison A. Tait, The Return of Coverture, 114 Mich. L. Rev. First Impressions 99 (2016). Available at: http://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr_fi/vol114/iss1/3 This Commentary is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review First Impressions by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE RETURN OF COVERTURE Allison Anna Tait* Once, the notion that husbands and wives were equal partners in marriage seemed outlandish and unnatural. Today, the marriage narrative has been reversed and the prevailing attitude is that marriage has become an increasingly equitable institution. This is the story that Justice Kennedy told in Obergefell v. Hodges, in which he described marriage as an evolving institution that has adapted in response to social change such that discriminatory marriage rules no longer apply. Coverture exemplifies this change: marriage used to be deeply shaped by coverture rules and now it is not. While celebrating the demise of coverture, however, the substantive image of marriage that Justice Kennedy set forth subconsciously uses conventional, historical tropes that construct marriage as a relationship of hierarchy, gender differentiation, and female disempowerment.
    [Show full text]
  • Blackstonian Marriage, Gender, and Cohabitation
    Blackstonian Marriage, Gender, and Cohabitation Naomi Cahn & June Carbone* In Blumenthal v. Brewer,1 the Illinois Supreme Court held that it would not enforce an alleged agreement between a nonmarital couple that centered on their relationship. The National Center for Lesbian Rights argued that the court’s holding punished people who entered into a nonmarital relationship.2 Nancy Polikoff found the opinion “shocking.”3 Albertina Antognini suggests that nonmarriage cases refusing to enforce such agreements harm women.4 These accusations also reflect concern that Blumenthal-type results are designed to encourage marriage and penalize others.5 Our analysis of Blumenthal and the nonmarriage cases starts from a different place. We think that the Blumenthal approach may not be entirely evil, even though we think Blumenthal itself raises issues about the retroactive application of these principles to people who could not marry at the time they began their relationship.6 * June Carbone is the Robina Chair of Law, Science and Technology, University of Minnesota Law School. Naomi Cahn is the Harold H. Greene Chair, George Washington University Law School. We thank Amy Orlov for research assistance, and we are grateful to Albertina Antignoni and Kaipo Matsumura for co-organizing the nonmarriage roundtable at which this was first presented. 1. 69 N.E.3d 834, 853 (Ill. 2016). 2. Defendant-Appellee Eileen M. Brewer’s Petition for Rehearing at 4, Blumenthal v. Brewer, 69 N.E.3d 834 (Ill. 2016) (No. 10 CH 48730), http://www.nclrights.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/09/2016.09.07.-Brewer-Pet-for-Rehearing.pdf [https://perma.cc/3SAC- U357].
    [Show full text]
  • Is Coverture Dead? Beyond a New Theory of Alimony Joan C
    University of California, Hastings College of the Law UC Hastings Scholarship Repository Faculty Scholarship 1994 Is Coverture Dead? Beyond a New Theory of Alimony Joan C. Williams UC Hastings College of the Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.uchastings.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Family Law Commons, and the Property Law and Real Estate Commons Recommended Citation Joan C. Williams, Is Coverture Dead? Beyond a New Theory of Alimony, 82 Geo. L.J. 2227 (1994). Available at: http://repository.uchastings.edu/faculty_scholarship/833 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Faculty Publications UC Hastings College of the Law Library Williams Joan Author: Joan C. Williams Source: Georgetown Law Journal Citation: 82 Geo. L.J. 2227 (1994). Title: Is Coverture Dead? Beyond a New Theory of Alimony Posted with permission of the publisher, GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL © 1994. Is Coverture Dead? Beyond a New Theory of Alimony JOAN WILLIAMS* Commentators who address the problem of women's and children's impoverishment upon divorce' generally define their goal as a "new theory * Professor of Law, American University, Washington College of Law. This article is dedicated to my mother, Jeanne Tedesche Williams. Many thanks for the help and com- ments of my reading group in Washington, D.C., and particularly to Naomi Cahn, Karen Czapanskiy, Elizabeth Samuels, and Laura Macklin; to Emily Van Tassel; to Jana Singer and Mitt Regan, whose extensive comments greatly improved the piece; and to Barbara Wood- house and June Carbone for ongoing conversations that have shaped my thinking.
    [Show full text]