Book Cover
E-book
Author Snyder, Terri L., 1956-

Title Brabbling women : disorderly speech and the law in early Virginia / Terri L. Snyder
Published Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, ©2003

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 182 pages) : illustrations
Contents Introduction: Brabbling Women in Early Virginia -- 1. Women, Misrule, and Political Culture -- 2. Sexual Stories: Narratives of Consent and Coercion -- 3. Unwifely Speeches and the Authority of Husbands -- 4. Freedom, Dependency, and the Power of Women's Speech -- 5. Windows, Fictive Widows, and the Management of Households -- Conclusion: Toward the Eighteenth Century
Summary "Brabbling Women takes its title from a 1662 law enacted by Virginia's burgesses, which was intended to offer relief to the "poore husbands" forced into defamation suits because their "brabling" wives had slandered or scandalized their neighbors. To quell such episodes of female misrule, lawmakers decreed that husbands could choose either to pay damages or to have their wives publicly ducked." "But there was more at stake here. By examining women's use of language, Terri L. Snyder demonstrates how women resisted and challenged oppressive political, legal, and cultural practices in colonial Virginia. Contending that women's voices are heard most clearly during episodes of crisis, Snyder focuses on disorderly speech to illustrate women's complex relationships to law and authority in the seventeenth century."--Jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-178) and index
Subject Women -- Virginia -- History -- 18th century
Women -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Virginia -- History
Sex customs -- Virginia -- History -- 18th century
HISTORY.
United States / Colonial Period (1600-1775).
LAW -- Gender & the Law.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Discrimination & Race Relations.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Minority Studies.
Sex customs
Women
Women -- Legal status, laws, etc.
Virginia
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2002151615
ISBN 9780801469930
0801469937
9780801440526
0801440521
0801479053
9780801479052