Disorder in the court : trials and sexual conflict at the turn of the century / edited by George Robb and Nancy Erber.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Robb, George.

Erber, Nancy, 1951-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sex--Political aspects--History--19th century--Case studies.

Sex.

Paraphilias--History--19th century--Case studies.

Paraphilias.

Sex and law--History--19th century--Cases.

Sex and law.

Sex crimes--History--19th century--Cases.

Sex crimes.

History.

Sex--Political aspects.

Physical Description:

viii, 253 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, 1999.

Summary:

At the turn of the century, a spate of sensational trials kept French and English readers spell-bound and ignited bitter tugs of war over marriage and divorce laws, women's rights, temperance, gay prostitution, and lesbian literature.

The chapters in Disorder in the Court each focus on a specific high-profile trial, and the public debates surrounding it, in order to address the role of the state in regulating sexual morality. The authors draw on police archives, records of coroners' inquests, magistrates' courts, and news coverage to bring to life social conflicts sparked by differing ideologies of class, gender, and sexuality. Also explored is the role of the police and 'scientific' methods of criminology in an era when working class marital conflicts were resolved by an axe blow, unwanted middle class spouses were dispatched with an arsenic diet, and government agents scanned sensational novels or loitered in Paris urinals in search of vice.

Contents:

2 A Public Offense against Decency: the Trial of the Count de Germiny and the "Moral Order" of the Third Republic / William Peniston 12

3 Conjugality on Trial: the Rukhmabai Case and the Debate on Indian Child-Marriage in Late-Victorian Britain / Antoinette Burton 33

4 The English Dreyfus Case: Florence Maybrick and the Sexual Double-Standard / George Robb 57

5 Did "My Lord Gomorrah" Smile?: Homosexuality, Class, and Prostitution in the Cleveland Street Affair / Morris B. Kaplan 78

6 A Shock to Marriage?: the Clitheroe Case and the Victorians / Ginger Frost 100

7 Books on Trial: Prosecutions for Representing Sapphism in fin-de-siecle France / Nicole Albert 119

8 "Don't Frighten the Horses": the Russell Divorce Case / Ann Sumner Holmes 140

9 Murder Most Foul: Spousal Homicides in Ontario, 1870-1915 / Annalee E. Golz 164

10 Queer Follies: Effeminacy and Aestheticism in fin-de-siecle France, the Case of Baron d'Adelsward Fersen and Count de Warren / Nancy Erber 186

11 A New Man for a New Century: Dr. Crippen and the Principles of Masculinity / Julie English Early 209

12 "The Magistrates are Men": Working-Class Marital Conflict and Appeals from the Magistrates' Court to the Divorce Court after 1895 / Gail Savage 231.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0814775268

OCLC:

40562320