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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne: Marriage, Separation, and Legal Controversies

Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne: Marriage, Separation, and Legal Controversies

Alfar, Cristina León
Sherwood, Emily

Hardcover

Series: Early Modern Englishwoman, 1500-1750: Contemporary Editions

Literary CriticismGeneral LawBritish History

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0367700360
ISBN13: 9780367700362
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Mar 29 2021
Pages: 188
Language: English

The documents contained in Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne: Marriage, Separation, and Legal Controversies tell a story of Mistress Bourne's petition for divorce, its resolution, and the ongoing dispute between Mistress Bourne and her husband about their marriage and separation, and subsequently between Mistress Bourne and Sir John Conway both for custody of her daughters and her financial security. The letters capture the contradiction between married women's official legal limitations and the often messy and complicated avenues of redress available to them. Elizabeth's narratives and desire for divorce challenge literary representations of patient endurance where appropriate feminine behavior restores a husband's devotion. The Bourne case offers a unique set of documents heretofore unavailable except through the British Library, National Archives' State Papers, and Hatfield House. Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne is tremendously important to early modern scholars and our knowledge about and view of women's negotiations for legal autonomy in the sixteenth century.

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Literary Criticism

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