WALNUT TREE EB

Kate Morgan

• Publisher: Mudlark
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780008559588
• eBook ISBN: 9780008559595
• Topic: Jura
• Subtopic: Familienrecht

A Waterstones Best History Book 2024

'Compulsively readable' – Times Literary Supplement

'An outstanding work' – Philippa Gregory

'A powerful narrative told with frankness and sensitivity' – Helen Fry, historian and author of Women In Intelligence

'A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more they are beaten, the better they'll be.'

So went the proverb quoted by a prominent MP in the Houses of Parliament in 1853. His words – intended ironically in a debate about a rise in attacks on women – summed up the prevailing attitude of the day, in which violence against women was waved away as a part and parcel of modern living – a chilling seam of misogyny that had polluted both parliament and the law. But were things about to change?

In this vivid and essential work of historical non-fiction, Kate Morgan explores the legal campaigns, test cases and individual injustices of the Victorian and Edwardian eras which fundamentally re-shaped the status of women under British law. These are seen through the untold stories of women whose cases became cornerstones of our modern legal system and shine a light on the historical inequalities of the law.

We hear of the uniquely abusive marriage which culminated in the dramatic story of the 'Clitheroe wife abduction'; of the domestic tragedies which changed the law on domestic violence; the controversies surrounding the Contagious Diseases Act and the women who campaigned to abolish it; and the real courtroom stories behind notorious murder cases such as the 'Camden Town Murder'.

Exploring the 19th- and early 20th Century legal history that influenced the modern-day stances on issues such as domestic abuse, sexual violence and divorce, The Walnut Treelifts the lid on the shocking history of women under British law – and what it means for women today.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Note to Readers
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• Prologue: ‘A considerably less heinous offence’
• Introduction: From This Day Forward
• PART I: TO HAVE AND TO HOLD
• Chapter One: ‘You shall have the body’
• Chapter Two: Femmes Soles
• Chapter Three: Absolute Dominion
• PART II: FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE
• Chapter Four: Lot 29
• Chapter Five: Pains and Penalties
• Chapter Six: Saevitia
• PART III: IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH
• Chapter Seven: The Examination Place
• Chapter Eight: ‘No man ever injures an honest woman’
• Chapter Nine: ‘Very subtle metaphysical questions’
• PART IV: FOR RICHER, FOR POORER
• Chapter Ten: ‘Such an idle hour is carelessly spent’
• Chapter Eleven: Desperate, Defiant Women
• Chapter Twelve: The Unwritten Law
• PART V: ’TIL DEATH US DO PART
• Chapter Thirteen: Arthur Road
• Chapter Fourteen: A Woman, a Dog and a Walnut Tree
• Chapter Fifteen: The Whistles Blow Forlorn
• Epologue: To Love and to Cherish
• Select Bibliography and Notes on Sources
• Acknowledgements
• Picture Section
• Index
• About the Publisher