Women, Power, and Litigation in the English Atlantic World, 1630-1700

Working at the intersection of women's history, social history, and legal history, this study reveals that women who appeared before the courts comprehended their legal rights and privileges, possessed a sound understanding of the legal issues at stake in their cases, and protected their self-interest through legal recourse. By setting women's litigation in a comparative framework encompassing England and its colonies, this study seeks to explain why and it what ways women's legal capabilities varied across the Atlantic world. Women who appeared before the courts in England and Massachusetts benefited from the traditional support networks of family and friends that characterized social relationships in English villages and New England towns. These family members often provided critical support for women initiating or responding to legal suits as legal advisors and witnesses. Maryland women, especially servants, lacked the networks of support that could bolster their cases before the magistrates. While women in all areas of the English world remained subordinates at the level of both household and state, I argue that women in England benefited from a multi-jurisdictional legal system that allowed them more freedom and flexibility at law than women in the colonies.

Author

• Moore, Lindsay

Language

• en

Keyword

• law
• Britain
• women
• American colonies
• property
• Atlantic World

Date created

• 2011

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• History

Degree

• Ph.D.

Advisor

• Peck, Linda

Committee Member(s)

• Schultheiss, Katrin
• Rudolph, Julia
• Silverman, David
• Norton, Marcia

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/k643b1339