Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-282) and index.
Summary:
'Women and the Land' examines the pre-history of gendered property relations in England, focusing on the 400-year period between roughly 1500 and 1900. More specifically, it is about how gender shaped opportunities for and experiences of owning property, particularly for women. The focus is especially on land, residential buildings and commercial property, but livestock, common and personal property also feature. This project is driven by an explicitly feminist agenda: the contributors challenge the idea that the existence of patriarchal property relations - including the doctrine of coverture and gendered inheritance practices - meant that property was concentrated in exclusively male hands. Here a very different story is told: of significant levels of female landownership and how women's desire to own property and manage its profits led to emotional attachments to land and a willingness and determination to fight for the right to legal title.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.