Virtue reconsider'd Married women in England during the long eighteenth century

Wives have long been neglected as a subject of academic research. The absence of married women from historical records in England, the complexities of their legal and economic status, and the mistaken belief that women's activities were confined to domestic affairs led to little attention being directed exclusively to wives.But recent studies are now challenging previously prevailing notions of the “private sphere” and showing that the roles available to married women were more nuanced and dynamic than they had previously been. This edited book brings together new research from a number of disciplines to examine key issues relating to married women during the eighteenth century.This study addresses issues of legal subordination, literary representation and ideology, wage labor and property ownership. It also explores new interdisciplinary and cross-temporal models that will guide future research.