This thesis is an exercise in the historical use of legal analysis. It illuminates the social construction of gender in an era of changing social mores, by relating rape doctrines to demographic, economic, social, and cultural changes. Changes in the rape law of early Industrial Britain (1800-1860) are examined as: 1). results of ideological changes since the eighteenth century; and 2). causes of the creation of Victorian sexual culture. The ideology of Separate Spheres for men and women led to a fearful sexual regime which prescribed chaperoning to ensure womens chastity. Law made womens avoidance of being alone outside, where they could become prey of strange men, a requirement for sexual respectability, because rape became more difficult to prove.<p>The 1817 rural Midlands murder case of Rex versus Abraham Thornton caused popular controversy because the judge said physical evidence of brutal sex was not inconsistent with consensual sex: the woman could have been persuaded by violence: reasonable doubt on the rape meant the accused was presumed to lack a motive to kill the deceased. Thornton was influential on law and gender ideology. Consent to forcethe idea that a woman could meaningfully consent to sex after violencewas extended in later rape cases. Secondly, even though the public reacted against Thorntons acquittal, popular culture interpreted it to support Stranger Dangerthat women risk rape by strangers while out alone, and should remain at home unless accompanied by trusted men. Consent to Force and Stranger Danger worked at different levels of the social hierarchy. But both served to extend Separate Spheres to working class women.<p>Law undermined traditional mores which had supported the North West European marriage systemlate marriage, small age difference between brides and grooms, nuclear family households, and numerous adolescents working in others homes as servants, resulting in low rates of premarital births during long courtships. Young commoners had managed a sexual balancing act by engaging in sexual exploration while refraining from vaginal intercourse. Late marriage, very low illegitimacy, and high rates of prenuptial conceptions of first marital births, resulted from young couples engaging in sexual intercourse only when conditions for marriage were right. Young men had to marry pregnant sweethearts, because communities could identify putative fathers.<p>Industrialization threw the North West marriage system out of balance: young men became more mobile and able to evade forced marriage. It also became more difficult for young men, especially artisans, to achieve the status traditionally associated with marriage. This sexual crisis was exacerbated by upper class libertinism spreading to commoner men. The Thornton case promoted libertinism among all men, to allow men of higher class to approach lower class women for prostitution.<p>The moral denigration of lower class women under rape law after Thornton was the flip side of the association of marriage with making wives consent to sex upon demand by their husbands, under Fraternal Patriarchy. Categorizing women as bad girls or good girls became central to rape law, yet illusory. Lower class women persuadable by force were subjected to similar constraints as wives: both were to think selflessly about fulfilling mens needs. Bourgeois wives, like domestic servants, entered lifelong contracts to serve heads of households upon demand. Domestic torts based upon the property right of masters of households to service provided by wives and children, as well as servants, linked treatment of different classes of women. <p>But because lower class women were not marriageable to elite men, their premarital chastity was not considered as valuable. Working class womens gender value was discounted; working class men were emasculated as potential heads of households, by economic instability interfering with marriage, the displacement of mens authority over wives to their employers, and the 1834 New Poor Law, which proposed removing wives and children from working class husbands and fathers when they went onto relief. De-gendering of lower class women and men was reflected in the difficulty that lower class men had in obtaining damages for domestic torts. Privileging of the bourgeois with respect to gender contributed to the failure of feminist and labour movements to cement a political alliance. Industrial-era rape doctrines were ultimately applied to all women rape complainants, regardless of class status, and became the basis for the anti-victim rape laws which second wave feminists analyzed and opposed. Modern rape law still presents women with similar challenges, based upon rape myths like Stranger Danger.

Våldtäkt är ett ständigt aktuellt ämne samtidigt men även ett som man gärna undviker att tala om det. Sverige är det land som har värst statistik när det gäller våldtäktsbrottet, vilket kan bero på flera olika anledningar som dock inte kommer att undersökas närmare i uppsatsen. De flesta våldtäkterna sker inom hemmets väggar, därför förefaller det uppseendeväckande att de inomäktenskapliga våldtäkterna kriminaliserades i Sverige så sent som på 1960 talet. Uppsatsen tar upp hur resonemangen kring genus, manligt, kvinnligt och rättsligt gick när sexualbrottskommittén, lagrådet och dess remissinstanser samt första och andra riksdagskammaren utredde den eventuella kriminaliseringen. Uppsatsen förhåller sig till genusteori, kriminologisk historia över de inomäktenskapliga våldtäktsbrotten samt andra teorier som kan förklara företeelsen.  Resultaten visar ett allmänt motstånd mot att kriminalisera de inomäktenskapliga våldtäkterna i de flesta instanserna. Det mest frekvent förekommande argumentet är att ett dylikt brott har svårt att komma till samhällets kännedom samt att det är svårt att bevisa. En låg tilltro förärades det kvinnliga könet då man menade att de skulle utnyttja lagen till sin egen fördel i skilsmässoprocesser eller vid illegitimt abortbehov.   Ett visst resonemang kring könens olikhet och samhällelig förändring kan skönjas hos en av källorna. Idéer som kan tänkas ligga bakom förändringen och motarbeta de gamla föreställningarna framkommer även hos vissa. Kvinnans sexuella frihet började diskuteras av en del organ. Uppsatsen öppnar dörrar för ytterligare forskning då man kan undersöka vilken genomslagskraft 1962 års brottsbalk fick när det gäller inomäktenskaplig våldtäkt och våldtäkt överhuvudtaget eftersom en del trodde att våldtäktsbegreppet skulle förlora sin slagkraft om man inkluderade de inomäktenskapliga våldtäkterna.

<p>Våldtäkt är ett ständigt aktuellt ämne samtidigt men även ett som man gärna undviker att tala om det. Sverige är det land som har värst statistik när det gäller våldtäktsbrottet, vilket kan bero på flera olika anledningar som dock inte kommer att undersökas närmare i uppsatsen.</p><p>De flesta våldtäkterna sker inom hemmets väggar, därför förefaller det uppseendeväckande att de inomäktenskapliga våldtäkterna kriminaliserades i Sverige så sent som på 1960 talet.</p><p>Uppsatsen tar upp hur resonemangen kring genus, manligt, kvinnligt och rättsligt gick när sexualbrottskommittén, lagrådet och dess remissinstanser samt första och andra riksdagskammaren utredde den eventuella kriminaliseringen.</p><p>Uppsatsen förhåller sig till genusteori, kriminologisk historia över de inomäktenskapliga våldtäktsbrotten samt andra teorier som kan förklara företeelsen. </p><p>Resultaten visar ett allmänt motstånd mot att kriminalisera de inomäktenskapliga våldtäkterna i de flesta instanserna. Det mest frekvent förekommande argumentet är att ett dylikt brott har svårt att komma till samhällets kännedom samt att det är svårt att bevisa. En låg tilltro förärades det kvinnliga könet då man menade att de skulle utnyttja lagen till sin egen fördel i skilsmässoprocesser eller vid illegitimt abortbehov.  </p><p>Ett visst resonemang kring könens olikhet och samhällelig förändring kan skönjas hos en av källorna. Idéer som kan tänkas ligga bakom förändringen och motarbeta de gamla föreställningarna framkommer även hos vissa. Kvinnans sexuella frihet började diskuteras av en del organ.</p><p>Uppsatsen öppnar dörrar för ytterligare forskning då man kan undersöka vilken genomslagskraft 1962 års brottsbalk fick när det gäller inomäktenskaplig våldtäkt och våldtäkt överhuvudtaget eftersom en del trodde att våldtäktsbegreppet skulle förlora sin slagkraft om man inkluderade de inomäktenskapliga våldtäkterna.    </p>

This project examines the articulation and application of colonial law in the French colony of Martinique during the eighteenth century through the work of a legal commentator and colonial magistrate, Pierre Dessalles. His compilation of Martinican laws reveals how local elites applied laws usually promulgated in France. His reliance on European political theorists illustrates the dissemination of legal knowledge across the Atlantic, while his comments and explanation of colonial law in light of Martinique’s history anchor this discussion in a local history. Thus, from Dessalles’ creole, local elite perspective, historians can perceive both the operation and ideology behind Martinican law because this document explicitly presented law (as prescription) and legalities (as practice) together. / text

A different kind of ‘subject:’ Aboriginal legal status and colonial law in Western Australia, 1829-1861. This thesis is an examination of the nature and application of the policy regarding the legal status and rights of Aboriginal people in Western Australia from 1829 to 1861. It describes the extent of the debates and the role of British law that arose after conflict between Aboriginal people and settlers in the context of political and economic contests between settlers and government on land issues. While the British government continually maintained that the legal basis for annexation was settlement, by the mid 1830s Stirling regarded it as an ‘invasion,’ but was neither prepared to accept that Aboriginal people had to consent to the imposition of British law upon them, nor to formally recognise their rights as the original owners of the land. Instead, Stirling’s government applied an archaic form of outlawry to Aboriginal people who resisted the invasion. This was despite proposals for agreements in the 1830s. During the early 1840s there was a temporary legal pluralism in Western Australia where Indigenous laws were officially recognised. However, by the mid 1840s the administration of British law in Western Australia was increasingly dictated by settler interests and mounting settler-magistrate pressure to modify the legal position of Aboriginal people which resulted in the development of colonial law to construct a landless subject status with minimal rights based on their value as a useful labour force for the pastoral economy. This separate legal status deliberately departed from ‘equality’ principles and corresponded with the diminished status of Indigenous laws and the abandonment of legal pluralism in settled districts, during a period of rapid pastoral expansion in the 1850s. This entrenched discriminatory practice in colonial law would be the prelude to the ‘protectionist’ and discriminatory legislation of the early twentieth century which formalised inequality of legal status.

The present dissertation endeavours to outline and analyze the evolution of the legal regulation of the status of civil servants from the end of the 18th century to 1938, with an emphasis on the understanding of the advent and change of the status of the so-called statutory civil servants in the Czech Lands. It examines certain issues in the history of the Service Law and their points of departure, and defines the terms 'civil servants', 'civil service, and 'bureaucracy', and their tasks, including state and public service. It puts forward a more comprehensive view of the history of this legal theme. Legal regulation of the status of civil servants in the Czech Lands has a long- established tradition which evolves in line with the evolution of the entire legal system and adopts to changes in society, economy, and the individual normative systems, including the law. The origins of the modern form of the Service Law go back to the 18th century, to the Age of Enlightenment, the reign of Marie Theresa and in particular, the reign of Josef II. Some institutes continued to an extent in the regulation of the absolutistic feudalism and that of the estates, while others represented completely new institutes and have been preserved to this day. There was a common principle that applied until the end of the...

Thesis advisor: Alan Rogers / Until the late 20th century marriage in the United States meant "the legal union of a man and a woman as husband and wife." In 2003, this was forever changed when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found a state law barring marriage between two individuals of the same sex unconstitutional in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health (2003). The case triggered a legal and social transformation for LGBT civil rights. Same-sex marriage has become one of the most widely discussed legal topics in the past ten years. This thesis examines the content, context, and significance of this particular case and the effect it has had on the American legal and cultural landscape. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: History.

This thesis examines the development of medical liability in Germany during its intense formative period from 1800-1945. The focus is on how the fault requirement in civil law was conceptualised and applied to liability for errors in the diagnosis and treatment of a patient. By focusing on the development of the law, and how it related and responded to changes in the nature of medicine, medical practitioners and healthcare over this period, this thesis uncovers a rich interaction between the legal and medical narratives of fault. In doing so, it offers an account of legal development where the law and lawyers were deeply embedded in, and influenced by, that broader social context. It identifies a gradual shift towards asserting courts’ independence from the medical narrative alongside greater willingness to question accepted practice, particularly in light of medical advances. The thesis says nothing directly about the closely related topic of liability for failure to secure the patient’s consent. We begin by mapping medicine and medical practice during this period. We then consider the evolution of ‘internal’ regulatory mechanisms and conceptions of error, in particular discussion over how to define a ‘Kunstfehler’ during the nineteenth century. We then unpack how the legal relationship between practitioner and patient was framed in nineteenth century Germany in criminal law, contract law and the law of delict before analysing the attendant standards of care and their application. Finally, we examine the changes wrought by the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch and the growth of medical liability and technology in the first half of the twentieth century. The thesis offers a heavily contextualised study of legal development in a core area of private law and concludes that the pattern of development here was driven by acceptance of, and eventually reaction against, a concept of fault rooted in the medical discourse.

This thesis draws on the theory and method of social ontology to explore why labour law struggles to provide for wage security and clarity of employment status today. It starts by exploring at a conceptual level the relationship between law and capitalism, before moving on to engage more specifically with the concept of the wage, situating the analysis in a theory of the wage's socio-economic function. The thesis understands the 'wage' as, initially, the market price of the commodity, 'labour power', which is exchanged in the labour market. As with any other 'price', the wage functions to coordinate decision making in the market. At the same time, however, the wage is also the cost of reproducing that commodity, a process which is not confined to the market but takes place in society more generally: this is the function of social reproduction. These two functions are not only conceptually and materially distinct; they are frequently in conflict. The price the market assigns to the labour commodity is not always, and not necessarily, that which is required to cover its costs of (re)production. The thesis shows that these functions of the wage find their expression in the various concepts the legal system uses to describe the payment made by employers to their workers. For example, the legal concept of the 'wage' corresponds closely to the economic idea of the wage as price, and the concept of 'remuneration' to the wage as the cost of social reproduction, shifting some of the social costs of employment onto the employer. How these conceptual tools are deployed, however, and thus how effectively these functions are performed in practice, depends on law's own view of its ontological status: that is, the implicit position that the legal system takes on what constitutes 'social reality' beyond the text of a particular case or statute, and thus its view of whether, and to what extent, legal concepts can shape, as well as respond, to it. The thesis shows that whether the legal system sees its concepts playing an active role in constituting social and economic relations, or whether it sees them as passively reacting to the 'demands' of a 'pre-constituted' economic system makes a difference to the effectiveness of law in practice. Understanding law's implicit ontology in this sense helps us to see why labour law struggles to provide for wage security and clarity of status. Thinking about law's relationship with social reality can thus make an important contribution to our understanding of the problems of low pay and unclear employment status today.

This study examines the ways Parisians viewed marriage contracts and marital relationships in the late fourteenth century. It focuses on the Archidiaconal court of Paris and the ways men and women used the court to modify their marriages. My argument in this project is two-fold: First, I argue that the Parisian laity had at least a basic understanding of marriage law, especially the importance of consent for the creation of marriages, and that women, in particular, used that knowledge to control their choice of marriage partner. Second, I argue that after the formation of the marriage, society had certain expectations for both husbands and wives. The evidence from narrative sources—such as conduct manuals and saints lives—presents a picture of obedient wives loving their husbands, who not only financially supported the household, but also loved their wives in return. Similarly, within Parisian separation cases, these same expectations allowed the majority of plaintiffs—usually female—to legally separate from their husband who did not live up to this ideal. The majority of this study uses documents from the Archidiaconal court of Paris from 1384-1387, but my arguments speak to a wider view of medieval marriage and the ways society viewed marriage more generally. Overall, these court cases indicate a wider cultural acceptance of affective marriages in the Middle Ages, and fit into the larger argument of female agency within the medieval legal system. Despite women’s marginalized legal status—in many cases not being allowed even to testify in court—women in the late fourteenth-century Archidiaconal court of Paris were regularly plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses before the officials. Women pled their cases sometimes with the support of legal counsel or their parents, but often alone, and they successfully negotiated the legal system to achieve their preferred outcome.