General, Politics, Source

Beauty in the Beholder’s Eye?

… Zadie Smith’s On Beauty played with the ‘body’ theme in fiction, whilst a century before, the body in all its constituent parts – along with beauty – was both a subject for sniggering sentiment, with ‘naughty’ postcards being sold surreptitiously on street corners and in alleyways or at fun fairs and in seaside pavillions, as well as a serious topic ‘for the ladies’.

General, Politics, Women's History

History, Law & Violence – For Women & Children, 17th Century Notions are Alive, Well & Inexcusable

… during the Roman occupation of Britain, England – like other occupied nations – incorporated the occupiers’ pre-Christian Roman law into their legal system. The Romans had a legal principle that a father or master had absolute dominion over his household, including the power of life and death over his wives, children, servants and slaves …