Coverture and the Debtors' Prison in the Long Eighteenth Century
Authors
Publication Date
2021-12Journal Title
Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
ISSN
1754-0194
Publisher
Wiley
Volume
44
Issue
4
Pages
343-360
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
AO
VoR
Metadata
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Wakelam, A. (2021). Coverture and the Debtors' Prison in the Long Eighteenth Century. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 44 (4), 343-360. https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12801
Abstract
Abstract: Until the late nineteenth century, the activities of English women were curtailed by the common law doctrine of coverture. While previous scholarship has documented how wives were able to subvert coverture to trade independently of husbands, little has been observed on how third parties similarly minimised common law. Through debt imprisonment – a largely extrajudicial process – this article reveals how creditors could force property ownership on married women against their will. That imprisoned wives struggled to assert their coverture further reveals the inferiority of contemporary rigid interpretations of coverture compared with the pressing needs of commercial interests.
Keywords
Original Article (Special Issue), Special Issue Articles, coverture, debt, prison, credit, commerce
Identifiers
jecs12801, jecs-2021-oa-048
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12801
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/332363
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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