Women, consumption and coverture in England, c . 1760–1860

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8956877
AutoresMargot C Finn (0000-0002-0007-1867, Emory University, autor de correspondencia), Margot Finn
Año1996
Volumen39
Número3
Páginas703-722
Fecha de publicación1996-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x0002450x
OpenAlexW2138189662
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas22
Referencias citadas25

Historians concerned to demonstrate women's increasing relegation to a private, domestic sphere in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have emphasized the extent to which married women's opportunities were restricted by the common law practice of coverture, which deprived wives of the ability to enter into economic contracts in their own right. Yet social and cultural historians have argued that women played an essential role as purchasers in promoting the consumer revolution of these decades. This article explores the devices used by married women consumers to evade the strictures of coverture. Focusing on three overlapping practices – wives' willingness and ability to pledge their husbands' credit to purchase a wide range of ‘necessary’ goods, their use of this tactic to secure a degree of independence from unsuccessful marriages, and their active participation in the deliberations of a variety of small claims courts – it argues that the purchase of coverture in the sphere of consumption was partial and contested, rather than monolithic

Consumption (sociology · Economics · Independence (probability theory · Pledge · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law