Belonging to the World: Women's Rights and American Constitutional Culture surveys the treatment of women in American law from the nation's earliest beginnings in British North America to the present. Placing the legal history of women in the broader social; political; and economic context of American history; this book examines the evolution of women's constitutional status in the United States; the development of rights consciousness among women; and their attempts to expand zones of freedom for all women. This is the first general account of women and American constitutional history to include the voices of women alongside the more familiar voices of lawmakers. An original work of historical synthesis; it delineates the shifting relationships between American law practice and women; both within the family and elsewhere; as it looks beyond the campaign for woman suffrage to broader areas of contest and controversy. Women's stories are used throughout the book to illustrate the extraordinary range and persistence of female rebellion from the 1630s up through the present era of "post-feminist" retrenchment and backlash. Belonging to the World: Women's Rights and American Constitutional Culture dispels the myth that the story of women and the law is synonymous only with woman suffrage or married women's property acts; showing instead that American women have struggled along many fronts; not only to regain and expand their rights as sovereign citizens; but also to remake American culture.
#4074962 in Books 1987-07-30Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.56 x .89 x 6.31l; #File Name: 0195042646304 pages
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Scion of three prominent families in Virginia is disowned after ...By Donald L ReedScion of three prominent families in Virginia is disowned after leaving his church and traveling north to become friends with Emerson; Thoreau; and other transcendentalists; attends Harvard Divinity School; becomes an antislavery protagonist; and being unable to convince Lincoln to free the slaves (earlier); while at the same time trying to prevent the Civil War; promotes the abolitionist movement. He wrote a two volume biography of Thomas Paine; and his other writings were influential. Unable to avoid the war; he and his wife moved to England; where he embarrassingly claimed spurious authority to promote Europe's opposition to the Civil War. The writing urges the reader on; to follow this quixotic adventure against slavery and war. Absorbing history of this crisis in the New World; and the personal conflicts among leaders.
