Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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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
Stolen Women in Medieval England: Rape, Abduction, and Adultery, 1100 1500

Stolen Women in Medieval England: Rape, Abduction, and Adultery, 1100 1500

Dunn, Caroline

Hardcover

Series: Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth, Book 87

British HistorySocial Movements

ISBN10: 1107017009
ISBN13: 9781107017009
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: Oct 4 2012
Pages: 274
Weight: 1.20
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.90 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
This study of illicit sexuality in medieval England explores links between marriage and sex, law and disorder, and property and power. Some medieval Englishwomen endured rape or were kidnapped for forced marriages, yet most ravished women were married and many 'wife-thefts' were not forced kidnappings but cases of adultery fictitiously framed as abduction by abandoned husbands. In pursuing the themes of illicit sexuality and non-normative marital practices, this work analyses the nuances of the key Latin term raptus and the three overlapping offences that it could denote: rape, abduction and adultery. This investigation broadens our understanding of the role of women in the legal system; provides a means for analysing male control over female bodies, sexuality and access to the courts; and reveals ways in which female agency could, on occasion, manoeuvre around such controls.

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