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7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website • Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class Somerset case

7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

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Page 1: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

7th Class• Attendance sheet• Start audio recording• Participation now on website• Review• Ethelbert’s Laws• Women and family• Next class

– Somerset case

Page 2: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

Review• Assumpsit

– Yearbook report• Focuses on oral pleading• unofficial

– Assumpsit initially available only for malfeasance• b/c writs should nor overlap

– By 16th century, nonfeasance actionable too• Common Law Procedure

– Procuring writ, pleading, post-trial motions in Westminster– Summoning parties, trial in locality– 3 courts, 4 judges each

• Winterbottom & Donoghue– Modern reporting– Focuses on demurrers, appeals– Winterbottom – narrow understanding of liability

• Narrow reading of precedents• Concerned about too many law suits

– Donoghue – expansion of liability• Based on search for principle to explain prior cases

Page 3: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

19th Century Civil Litigation

• Fusion of Law & Equity– Same judges & courts can hear trusts & wills as well as

contact & property– Same judge can hear bench trials and conduct jury trals– Same court can order discovery in common law case– Same court can give relief from penalties, etc.

• Single Form of Action– No writs– Case initiated with “complaint” and “summons”

• Complaint is summary of factual claims and desired relief– Not a form

Page 4: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

Ethelbert’s Laws• 1) What do these laws suggest about the status

of women in early medieval England?

• 2) What do these laws suggest about marriage and family in early medieval England?

• 3) What did you find interesting, surprising, or puzzling about these laws?

Page 5: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

Women and Marital Status• In later medieval and early modern England, women’s

rights depended largely on marital status– Adult, unmarried women had full rights in “private law”

• Rights to own property, enter into contracts, and sue and be sued in their own names.

• But did not have “public” rights, e.g. right to serve on juries or vote in Parliamentary elections

– Doctrine of coverture severely restricted rights of married women

• Property that wife brought into marriage was managed by her husband

• Wife could not receive grants of property in her own name• Wife could not enter into contracts, except for “necessaries,” without

consent of husband• Wife could not sue or be sued unless her husband joined her or was

joined in the lawsuit.• Legal personhood of wife “suspended” or “merged into husband”

during marriage

Page 6: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

Chancery and Married Women• Chancery alleviated some disabilities of married

women– Allowed property to be held in trust for a married

woman– Thus giving her de facto control over some property– Only helped wealthy women

• 1882 Married Women’s Property Act– Ended coverture

• Women could sue and be sued• Women liable for their own debts

– gave married women full property rights

Page 7: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

Formation of Marriage• Later Middle Ages

– Marriage regulated by church– Pope Alexander III (late 12th century) decreed that marriage

formed by free consent of man and woman• Parental consent not necessary• Consummation not necessary• Woman’s consent central• Publicity not necessary

– No need for priest, witnesses or church

• Early Modern – Lack of publicity requirements caused “clandestine marriage”

problem– Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act (1753)

• Marriage must be solemnized in church• Banns. Marriage plans must be announced in church for three weeks

before marriage ceremony• Parental consent is necessary if either husband or wife under 21

Page 8: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

Divorce• Later Middle Ages

– Divorce & annulment• Divorce = modern separation

– No right to remarry– Only right to maintain separate residences and refused marital relations– Available only if husband was physically cruel

• Annulment = modern divorce– Right to remarry– Available only if marriage invalid, not if marriage breaks down– Grounds for annulment

» Incest. Marriage within prohibited degrees» Impotence» Coerced consent

• Early modern– Parliament could grant divorce with right to remarry in

individual cases• Very expensive (e.g. L500 in mid-19th century)• Only if spouse had committed adultery• So rich could get modern divorce, but poor could not

Page 9: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

Marriage & Divorce Reform• Possibility of civil marriage, without participation of religious authority (1836)• Divorce for cause (1857-1969)

– 1857 Statute• Man could get divorce if wife committed adultery• Woman could get divorce only if husband committed adultery AND

cruelty or desertion• de facto divorce by mutual consent

– Because parties who wanted divorce would not contest adultery– 1923. Equality between men & women

• Requirement for cruelty or desertion removed– 1935. Adultery OR cruelty OR desertion as grounds for divorce

• 1969 Divorce if “marriage breakdown”• Divorce granted right to subsequent civil marriage, but not marriage in

Church of England

Page 10: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

Women’s Suffrage• Suffrage movement

– National movement for women to vote founded in 1872– Initially moderate, but turned more radical over time

• Stone throwing, window smashing, hunger strikes in prison– World War I manpower shortage led to women doing traditionally male

jobs• And thus changed perception of women

– 1918 statute. Women over 30 get right to vote under certain conditions (e.g. head of propertied household, married to propertied man, university graduate)

• Also gave right to vote to all males 21 or older• Women were 43% of electorate

– Would have been more than half, if all women over 21 could vote• Women also got right to be members of Parliament

– 1928. All women over 21 could vote

Page 11: 7th Class Attendance sheet Start audio recording Participation now on website Review Ethelbert’s Laws Women and family Next class –Somerset case

Women, Employment & Education• Equal Pay Act 1970

– equal pay for same or similar work • Sex Discrimination Act 1975

– makes discrimination against women or men, including discrimination on the grounds of marital status, illegal in the workplace.

• Also in Education and business – Enforced primarily by Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), not

individual suits