Book contents
- Mary Wollstonecraft in Context
- Mary Wollstonecraft in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
- Frontispiece
- Chronology
- Part I Life and Works
- Part II Critical Fortunes
- Part III Historical and Cultural Contexts
- The French Revolution Debate
- The Rights of Woman Debate
- Philosophical Frameworks
- Legal and Social Culture
- Chapter 23 The Constitution
- Chapter 24 Property Law
- Chapter 25 Domestic Law
- Chapter 26 Slavery and Abolition
- Chapter 27 The Bluestockings
- Chapter 28 Conduct Literature
- Chapter 29 Theories of Education
- Literature
- Suggested Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 25 - Domestic Law
from Legal and Social Culture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2020
- Mary Wollstonecraft in Context
- Mary Wollstonecraft in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
- Frontispiece
- Chronology
- Part I Life and Works
- Part II Critical Fortunes
- Part III Historical and Cultural Contexts
- The French Revolution Debate
- The Rights of Woman Debate
- Philosophical Frameworks
- Legal and Social Culture
- Chapter 23 The Constitution
- Chapter 24 Property Law
- Chapter 25 Domestic Law
- Chapter 26 Slavery and Abolition
- Chapter 27 The Bluestockings
- Chapter 28 Conduct Literature
- Chapter 29 Theories of Education
- Literature
- Suggested Further Reading
- Index
Summary
In the eighteenth century there was no formal category of “domestic law.” The terminology of “domestic relations” emerged in the nineteenth century, and the modern concept of “family law” only in the twentieth. The eminent lawyer William Blackstone, following the Continental model, included the relationships between husband and wife, parent and child, and master and servant, within the “law of persons” in his groundbreaking Commentaries on the Laws of England, but other contemporary writers tended to focus on specific relationships. Nonetheless, the term “domestic law” remains a useful shorthand for the various ways in which the law – whether contained in legislation, or in the decisions of the ecclesiastical, common-law, or criminal courts – regulated family relationships.
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- Mary Wollstonecraft in Context , pp. 215 - 221Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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