publication . Article . 2008

‘Living as a Single Person’: marital status, performance and the law in late medieval England

Name: ‘Living as a Single Person’: marital status, performance and the law in late medieval England
Creator: Cordelia Beattie
Keywords: History, Gender Studies, /dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200/1202, /dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3318

Cordelia Beattie;

Open Access

Published: 01 Mar 2008 Journal: Women's History Review, volume 17, pages 327-340 (issn: 0961-2025, eissn: 1747-583X,

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Country: United Kingdom

Summary

Abstract

This article contributes to the debate about how we define the single woman by thinking about what makes someone ‘married’ as opposed to ‘not married’. It argues that understanding what marriage meant in a particular society can shed light on what it meant to live as a single person in that society, in this case, the society of fourteenth and fifteenth century England. It also argues that ‘the margins of marriage’, the grey areas produced by definitions of marriage, are also at the margins of singleness, thus adding the separated and the divorced to the never married and the widowed as those who might be considered as single. The article therefore discusses how ...

doi: 10.1080/09612020801924381

handle: 20.500.11820/b4cb43c8-48e3-4a06-8cd6-3ab6134fdf1a

Subjects

free text keywords: History, Gender Studies, /dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200/1202, /dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3318, Marital status, Single person, Fifteenth, Sociology, Law, NEVER MARRIED, Gray (horse)

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