“Important both for political theorists and for women's studies. She explores with great care and thoroughness the connections between nineteenth century feminist argument and activism on the one hand, and familiar liberal principles of justice and equality on the other” - Nannerl 0. Keohane, Wellesley College Traditional studies of the women's movement in Victorian England focused on the battle for suffrage and other public rights. In this new study, however, Mary Lyndon Shanlev explores how Victorian women campaigned to reform the laws which related to marriage and the married state. Arguing that without a fundamental transformation of the marriage relationship there would be no justice for women, they fought a series of campaigns to change laws governing divorce, married women's property, infanticide, protective labour legislation, child custody, wife abuse, marital rape and the “restitution of conjugal rights”. Women involved in these campaigns exposed the connection between the privileged position of men in both public and private life and the reluctance of Parliament to enact the reforms women sought. In a series of case studies Shanley explores the demands of the reformers, and the response of Parliament. In an Epilogue, Shanley warns of the dangers to liberal feminism in relying exclusively on equal rights in the law as a formula for change.

Bridging the fields of political theory and history, this comprehensive study of Victorian reforms in marriage law reshapes our understanding of the feminist movement of that period. As Mary Shanley shows, Victorian feminists argued that justice for women would not follow from public rights alone, but required a fundamental transformation of the marriage relationship.

Having demonstrated that their economic aspirations and circumstances were a necessary but not a sufficient cause for the onset of family limitation by the English upper and middle classes, another suggested explanation, the emancipation of women, is examined in this study. This shows how the feminists were little involved in the family limitation campaigns, and concludes that such emancipation was less important than the rising standard of living.

Women's History: Britain 1850-1945 introduces the main themes and debates of feminist history during this period of change, and brings together the findings of new research. It examines the suffrage movement, race and empire, industrialisation, the impact of war and womens literature. Specialists in their own fields have each written a chapter on a key aspect of womens lives including health, the family, education, sexuality, work and politics. Each contribution provides an overview of the main issues and debates within each area and offers suggestions for further reading. It not only provides an invaluable introduction to every aspect of womens participation in the political, social and economic history of Britain, but also brings the reader up to date with current historical thinking on the study of womens history itself.

"This book examines how a group of transnational British-Italian women affiliated with the exiled patriots of the Italian Left repurposed traditionally feminine activities, such as fundraising, gift-giving, maternity, and memory collection, to make a substantial contribution to Italian Unification and state-building. Through their actions, Mary Chambers, Sara Nathan, Giorgina Saffi, Julia Salis Schwabe, and Jessie White Mario transcended the boundaries of acceptable behavior for middle-class women and participated in the broader female emancipation movement. By drawing attention to their activities, this book reveals how nineteenth-century female activists achieved their most revolutionary goals by using conservative, domestic, or anti-Catholic language. Adding to the growing understanding of the Italian Risorgimento as a transnational phenomenon, it also shows how non-Catholic and non-Italian women participated in the creation and development of the Italian state. Finally, the book argues for the continuing importance of religion in both politics and philanthropy throughout the nineteenth century."

The author argues that rather than seeing liberalism as exclusionary of women's specificity, as many contemporary feminists do, we should look at variations in liberalism, and in particular at its democratisation in the nineteenth century, and at how feminists have used liberalism as a resource. Liberalism is analysed using a post-structuralist theory of hegemony: texts of liberal political philosophy are deconstructed to show how the term 'women' is used as an 'undecidable' in the Derridean sense to produce the opposition between feminine private and masculine public spheres; these texts are then linked to liberal-democratic social and political practices, including feminism as a social movement.

One nineteenth-century commentator noted the ‘public’ character of Quaker women as signalling a new era in female history. This study examines such claims through the story of middle-class women Friends from among the kinship circle created by the marriage in 1839 of Elizabeth Priestman and the future radical Quaker statesman, John Bright. The lives discussed here cover a period from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, and include several women Friends active in radical politics and the women’s movement, in the service of which they were able to mobilise extensive national and international networks. They also created and preserved a substantial archive of private papers, comprising letters and diaries full of humour and darkness, the spiritual and the mundane, family confidences and public debate, the daily round and affairs of state. The discovery of such a collection makes it possible to examine the relationship between the personal and public lives of these women Friends, explored through a number of topics including the nature of Quaker domestic and church cultures; the significance of kinship and church membership for the building of extensive Quaker networks; the relationship between Quaker religious values and women’s participation in civil society and radical politics and the women’s rights movement. There are also fresh perspectives on the political career of John Bright, provided by his fond but frank women kin. This new study is a must read for all those interested in the history of women, religion and politics.