Self-study
P1
In England before 1660, a husband controlled his wife's property. ██ ███ ████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ████ ██████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ████████ █████ ██ ███████████ ███████ ████████ ██ █ █████████ ███
Intro topic / historical context ·
In late 17th and 18th centuries, marriage in England had features of a contract
Before 1660, husbands controlled wives' property. Implication that this changed after marriage started to become like a contract.
Historians' perspective ·
Contract aspect of marriage was a gain for women
It reflected changing views about democracy and property after 1660.
Staves' perspective ·
Judicial decisions undermined any gains from marriage contracts
P2
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Staves' support 1 ·
Definitions of men's and women's property was harmful to women
Example: property inherited by wives after husbands' death couldn't be sold. But property inherited by men from wives could be sold.
Staves' support 2 ·
New legal concepts in connection with marriage contracts were unfair to women
Examples: certain limits on pin money and maintenance allowances.
Historians' response ·
These problems were minor and would disappear soon
Staves' response ·
Judges fell back to pre-1660 assumptions about property
P3
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Implication of Staves' work 1 ·
Staves has changed her view on whether separate maintenance allowances were good for women
Before, she said they were good. Now, she thinks that's oversimplified.
Implication of Staves' work 2 ·
Challenges an assumption underlying Stones' view
Stones argued that in late 18th century, wealthy men married widows less often than they used to, because more people started to marry for love rather than for financial reasons. Staves counters the assumption that widows had more money than non-widows.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
27.
The passage suggests that the
a
The shift from ██████████ ██ ██████████ ██████ ███████ █████ █████ ████████ ███ ███ ███ █████████████ ███████ ███████ █████ █████ ███ ████ ██████████ ████████
Unsupported. The historians think that the changed views about property did benefit women. We have no reason to believe that they think the changes didn’t benefit women until the late 18th century.
b
Despite initial judicial ██████████ ██ ███████ ███████████ ███████ ████████ █████████ ███████████ █ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████
Unsupported. The historians do think that marriage contracts represented a gain for women, but they don’t say anything about judicial resistance to women’s contractual rights. Staves— not the historians— says that judges relied on outdated assumptions when making decisions about marriage contracts.
c
Although marriage contracts ████████████ █ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███ █ ████████ ██ █████████ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ ███████ ███████ ██████
Anti-supported. The historians think that marriage contracts did
d
Changing views about ████████ ███ █████████ ██ ████████████████ ███████ ███ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████
Supported. Changing views in post-Restoration England brought contractual marriages, which the historians argue
e
Although contractual rights ██████████ ███████ ████████ ███████████ █ █████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████ ████ ████ █████████ ██ ██ ████ ██████████ ███ ███ ████ ███ ██████
Unsupported. The historians don’t say anything about “most laws.” They only argue that the post-Restoration shift toward contractual marriages represented a gain for women. We don’t know if that gain was small or large.