The Journey to Seneca Falls: Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the Legal Emancipation of Women
2013; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês
10.2139/ssrn.2215256
ISSN1556-5068
Autores Tópico(s)Literature: history, themes, analysis
ResumoThe star that guides us all, President Barack Obama declared in his Second Inaugural, is our commitment to human dignity and justice. This commitment has led us through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall towards the equality that we enjoy today. This Article concerns the pre-history to the Seneca Falls Convention of Women's Rights, alluded to by President Obama. It is a journey that began during the infancy of the common law in medieval England. It leads through the construction, by generations of English lawyers and religious figures, of a strong and imposing monolith of patriarchal rule. By marriage women lost their independent legal personality and were, for purposes of law, incorporated into their husband in accord with the legal doctrine known as coverture. The husband represented the family in civic affairs, was exclusively empowered to make all legally effective decisions for the family, and generally governed his wife and household.
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