The measure of woman : law and female identity in the crown of Aragon / Marie A. Kelleher.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kelleher, Marie A.

Series:

Middle Ages series.

Middle ages series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

James II, King of Aragon, approximately 1264-1327.

James.

Women--Legal status, laws, etc--Spain--History.

Women.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (227 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

By the end of the Middle Ages, the ius commune-the combination of canon and Roman law-had formed the basis for all law in continental Europe, along with its patriarchal system of categorizing women. Throughout medieval Europe, women regularly found themselves in court, suing or being sued, defending themselves against criminal accusations, or prosecuting others for crimes committed against them or their families. Yet choosing to litigate entailed accepting the conceptual vocabulary of the learned law, thereby reinforcing the very legal and social notions that often subordinated them. In The Measure of Woman Marie A. Kelleher explores the complex relationship between women and legal culture in Spain's Crown of Aragon during the late medieval period. Aragonese courts measured women according to three factors: their status in relation to men, their relative sexual respectability, and their conformity to ideas about the female sex as a whole. Yet in spite of this situation, Kelleher argues, women were able to play a crucial role in shaping their own legal identities while working within the parameters of the written law. The Measure of Woman reveals that women were not passive recipients-or even victims-of the legal system. Rather, medieval women actively used the conceptual vocabulary of the law, engaging with patriarchal legal assumptions as part of their litigation strategies. In the process, they played an important role in the formation of a gendered legal culture that would shape the lives of women throughout Western Europe and beyond for centuries to come.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

A Note on Names

Introduction. Legal Texts and Gendered Contexts

Chapter 1. Drawing Boundaries: Women in the Legal Landscape in the Age of Jaume II

Chapter 2. The Power to Hold: Women and Property

Chapter 3. Crimes of Passion: Sexual Transgression and the Legal Taxonomy of Women

Chapter 4. Gender and Violence

Conclusions

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781283897877

1283897873

9780812205343

0812205340

OCLC:

794700621