Thesis (M. Journ.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Journ.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

published_or_final_version / Journalism and Media Studies Centre / Master / Master of Journalism

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 130-140). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Sensation fiction, which flourished in England from the 1850s to the 1880s, was viewed by Victorian establishment figures as a threat to prevailing social values. This dissertation focuses on the work of Charles Reade, who along with Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, was among the most well-known sensation novelists. While several novels by Collins and Braddon have been rediscovered by scholars since the 1980s, Reade's fiction remains neglected. With its explicit critique of the emerging regimes of power/knowledge in the fields of medicine, criminal justice, and sexual mores, Reade's work anticipates Michel Foucault's theories elaborated a century later. Although previous readings of Victorian fiction have drawn on the ideas of Foucault in an attempt to identify sensation novels as cultural productions complicit with a developing bourgeois hegemony, I argue that these novels represent a narrative genre that challenges and resists these disciplinary constraints. In addition, Reade's work provides a rare glimpse of alternative sexualities and gender identities in nineteenth-century fiction that can be read in light of feminist and gender theory. This dissertation recovers the fiction of Charles Reade as a body of work that anticipates recent trends in literary and cultural theory and that speaks to us today with an uncanny familiarity.

This dissertation examines the intersection of the prosecution of criminal justice, sexual morality and the family at the parlement of Paris, which was the highest court of appeal in France, during the height of its power and influence in the kingdom from 1564-1655. This dissertation argues that in its adjudication of the crimes of seduction, infanticide, adultery, and bigamy the parlement of Paris interpreted the law according to a paternal theory of state by prioritizing family integrity and patriarchal honour in its decisions. In so doing, it presents a unique synthesis of statute and published legal opinion with a systematic survey of judicial decisions, based on archival findings, relating to these sex crimes in early modern France. It concludes that these judicial decisions were ensconced in the concepts of family, the king’s justice, and sovereignty, which were foundational to the interconnected theories of state and society in early modern France. The parlement tended to separate elite and modest appellants according to the socio-economic priorities of lignage and ménage, or the protection of the integrity of elite lineages and the stability of artisanal households within broader networks of family and community. Ultimately, this study exposes the expectations and values that gendered authority placed on men and women in early modern French society, reveals the ways that the most powerful judges in France interpreted the law according to these values, and unveils the narratives that women and men crafted when they confronted these expectations before these powerful judges. In so doing, this dissertation sheds new light on the relationships between gender and the law, gender relations in state and society, and the lived experience of marriage in early modern France. / Graduate / 2022-08-09

Text in Afrikaans / In hierdie ondersoek is navorsing gedoen oor die Romeinse huweliksverhouding ten einde vas te stel of die klassieke Romeinse reg die Romeinse vrou se huweliksverhouding beskerm het indien dit deur haar man se wangedrag geskend is. Die navorsing het getoon dat, soos in die Suid-Afrikaanse reg, die Romeinse huweliksverhouding teen die klassieke tydperk 'n consortium omnis vitae met veral morele huwelikspligte was en dat die nie-nakoming van hierdie pligte op wangedrag en skending van die huweliksverhouding neergekom het. Daar is tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat, soos in die moderne reg, ook die Romeinse man die huweliksverhouding kon skend deur wangedrag, beperkte vorme van seksuele wangedrag, iniuria en bigamie. Die klassieke Romeinse reg het egter nie aan die Romeinse vrou direkte regsbeskerming verleen by die man se skending van die huweliksverhouding deur wangedrag nie. Sy het egter wel indirekte regsbeskerming in die vorm van toevlugof afskrikmiddels (soos egskeiding en die dos) geniet. / In this study research has been done on the Roman marital relationship in order to determine whether classical Roman law protected the Roman wife's marital relationship if it had been breached by her husband's misconduct. Research has shown that by the classical period, as in South African law, the Roman marital relationship was a consortium omnis vitae with primarily moral marital duties. Non-compliance with these duties amounted to misconduct and breach of the marital relationship. It was concluded that, as in modern law, the Roman husband too could be in breach of his marital relationship through misconduct, limited forms of sexual misconduct, iniuria and bigamy. However, classical Roman law did not grant the Roman wife any direct legal protection where her husband was in breach of the marital relationship because of misconduct. She nevertheless enjoyed indirect legal protection in the form of deterrents (such as divorce and the dos). / Law / LL.M.

Text in Afrikaans / In hierdie ondersoek is navorsing gedoen oor die Romeinse huweliksverhouding ten einde vas te stel of die klassieke Romeinse reg die Romeinse vrou se huweliksverhouding beskerm het indien dit deur haar man se wangedrag geskend is. Die navorsing het getoon dat, soos in die Suid-Afrikaanse reg, die Romeinse huweliksverhouding teen die klassieke tydperk 'n consortium omnis vitae met veral morele huwelikspligte was en dat die nie-nakoming van hierdie pligte op wangedrag en skending van die huweliksverhouding neergekom het. Daar is tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat, soos in die moderne reg, ook die Romeinse man die huweliksverhouding kon skend deur wangedrag, beperkte vorme van seksuele wangedrag, iniuria en bigamie. Die klassieke Romeinse reg het egter nie aan die Romeinse vrou direkte regsbeskerming verleen by die man se skending van die huweliksverhouding deur wangedrag nie. Sy het egter wel indirekte regsbeskerming in die vorm van toevlugof afskrikmiddels (soos egskeiding en die dos) geniet. / In this study research has been done on the Roman marital relationship in order to determine whether classical Roman law protected the Roman wife's marital relationship if it had been breached by her husband's misconduct. Research has shown that by the classical period, as in South African law, the Roman marital relationship was a consortium omnis vitae with primarily moral marital duties. Non-compliance with these duties amounted to misconduct and breach of the marital relationship. It was concluded that, as in modern law, the Roman husband too could be in breach of his marital relationship through misconduct, limited forms of sexual misconduct, iniuria and bigamy. However, classical Roman law did not grant the Roman wife any direct legal protection where her husband was in breach of the marital relationship because of misconduct. She nevertheless enjoyed indirect legal protection in the form of deterrents (such as divorce and the dos). / Law / LL.M.