By MRA-UK: I have opined previously that patriarchy, far from being oppression of women by men, was largely a piece of theatre, an illusion. By observing the formalities associated with a man being “master in his own house”, the man’s blushes were spared: no one need ever acknowledge his domestically subservient position, though everyone really knew. The law of coverture is generally regarded, especially by feminists, as a quintessentially patriarchal device. They are right – but only if we adopt the interpretation of patriarchy as illusion. Looking behind the smoke and mirrors of coverture into how it was interpreted in practice reveals that it too was really a façade of male power concealing a female power within.
I have drawn upon the following sources for the account which follows (which relates to the UK),
I have drawn upon the following sources for the account which follows (which relates to the UK),
- Margot Finn, Women, consumption and coverture in England, c. 1760–1860, The Historical Journal, 39, pp 703-722 doi:10.1017/S0018246X0002450X. Available here.
- Joanne Bailey, Favoured or oppressed? Married women, property and ‘coverture’ in England, 1660–1800, Continuity and Change 17 (3), 2002, 351–372. Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1017/S0268416002004253. Available here.
- Stephen J. Ware, A 20th Century Debate About Imprisonment for Debt, available here.
- Malcolm J George, Riding the Donkey Backwards: men as the Unacceptable Victims of Marital Violence, The Journal of Men’s Studies, Volume 3, No.2, November 1994, 137-159. Available here.