Submit or Starve

Chapter Two examines conflict between English aristocrats in a dynastic marriage that created problems for both Parliamentary and royalist authorities during England’s Civil Wars and Restoration. Edward and Catherine Scott’s 1656 parliamentary divorce suit illustrates Interregnum marriage laws and reveals the untold political backstory for Manby v. Scott (1663). In Manby, seventeenth-century England’s leading jurists invoked the patriarchal powers of ordinary householders to shore up the shaky power of King Charles II. They claimed that Manby would remedy the “many mischiefs” caused by wartime suspension of the Anglican ecclesiastical court system and end the supposed affront to the “great modesty and decorum” of the common law caused by the public airing of women’s grievances. They argued for the principled necessity of leaving wayward wives (as well as other dependents) the choice to “submit or starve,” lest indulgence of disobedience promote disorder. Manby exemplifies the patriarchal tendency to react as if the exposure of gender-based injustices were a more significant problem than the injustices themselves. The case framed two centuries of English and American debates about coverture and reciprocal obligations within households. Dissenting views from the case, emphasizing husbands’ obligations rather than their authority, prevailed in local practice.

Dissenting opinion · Indulgence · Interregnum · Political science · Politics · Royalist · Sociology · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law