| Description |
1 online resource (xix, 209 pages) |
| Series |
Oxford studies in modern legal history |
|
Oxford studies in modern legal history.
|
| Contents |
Codifying womanhood : the Nineteenth-Century action for breach of promise of marriage as the legal expression of the ideal of true womanhood -- A structural inconsistency : the true woman and the breach-of-promise plaintiff -- Breach of promise in the early Nineteenth Century (1800-50) : strategies of containment, a created inconsistency, and the aesthetic of the grotesque -- Breach of promise in the high Victorian Period (1850-1900) : the inconsistency unveiled, pinchbeck angels, and the dominance of satire -- Breach of promise in the Post-Victorian Period (1900-40) : a changing ideal the action's decline, and the symbolism of breach of promise |
| Summary |
Lettmaier explores ideals of femininity during the 19th and early 20th centuries by charting responses to broken engagements. Interweaving a history of the legal remedies for a broken promise of marriage with literary accounts from Dickens to Wodehouse, it offers an insight into attitudes to female identity |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-205) and index |
| Notes |
English |
|
Print version record |
| Subject |
Breach of promise -- History
|
|
Husband and wife -- History
|
|
Betrothal -- Law and legislation.
|
|
Betrothal -- Law and legislation
|
|
Breach of promise
|
|
Husband and wife
|
| Genre/Form |
History
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780191722066 |
|
0191722065 |
|
