Andrew Grant-Adamson Ann Jones was a remarkable 19th century woman. But no-one will have heard of her. Born in Ireland, the daughter of a regimental tailor, she was deserted by her wastrel first husband, built a successful business, went…
Tag: divorce
Young Adult Literature – Censoring Teenage Sexual Autonomy
In the novels by Blume, Klein, et al, ‘two nice kids, in love, have sexual intercourse and no one dies.’ In both Blume’s ‘Forever’ and Klein’s ‘It’s Ok if you Don’t Love Me’, the male love interests are the ones left alone, the girls having moved on and embodied the traditionally ‘masculine’ relationship role. The young women in these books enjoy sex, and their experiences are discussed in detail. Crucially, they enjoy sex as just one component of a rounded lifestyle, as with Blume’s Sybil: ‘Sybil Davison has a genius IQ and has been laid by at least six different guys.’
‘What does a woman want money for?
Almost all the research into the gender pay gap has looked at its causes, but I want to look at its consequences. The correlation between low pay and unequal pay is unclear – I believe deliberately so: policy makers quite simply don’t want to face up to the fact that poverty is a women’s issue; easier by far to blame the education system, or the way in which benefits are distributed, than to redress the imbalance of power that impoverishes women.
Katherine Cecil Thurston – From a Will to a Death
If middle-class women lived humdrum lives, it was clearly a relief to read about the sensational. But the one among Thurston’s novels that became notorious in the light of its author’s end was The Fly on the Wheel, whose Irish heroine, torn between two men and hemmed in by the restrictions of being a woman, commits suicide by poison.
Seymour Dorothy Fleming (1757-1818), part 1
Born in October 1757, Seymour Dorothy Fleming was the fourth of five children of Irish career soldier, Sir John Fleming and his wife, Jane Colman, granddaughter of the Duke of Somerset. Seymour was the surname of the Somerset dynasty and…
Women’s History Month: Lady Colin Campbell (1857-1911)
Lady Colin Campbell became the centre of media attention in 1886 when her husband accused her of adultery with a Duke, a general, a doctor and a fire-chief. The subsequent divorce trial was one of the longest in English legal…
Legal Aid, Divorce and Lessons from History
This week the UK government has announced a cut of £350 million from the legal budget for England and Wales, leading to the withdrawal of support from all cases but those that involve life and liberty. It effectively means that…
Married Women’s Property and Divorce in the 19th Century
In 1882, after a series of earlier reforms, the Married Women’s Property Act passed for England, Wales and Ireland, while Scotland had a less extensive Act in 1880 and another in 1881. The Act restored to married women the right…