In Anne Orthwood’s Bastard: Sex and Law in Early Virginia, John Pagan sets out to examine the complexities of the legal system on the Eastern Shore in the seventeenth- century. He brings to light the growing differences between the English and Virginia legal systems. Pagan, an early American legal historian at the University of Richmond School of Law, spins a tragic story on the legalities surrounding an instance of out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Indentured servant Anne Orthwood’s brief encounter with a man of higher social standing produced a series of four court cases. Pagan examines each case and persons involved, vividly connecting each case to larger themes of social class, gender, labor, and economic power. The layout of the book devotes each chapter to a key figure in Anne’s case. The story begins, fittingly, with Anne Orthwood, the young indentured servant, who had a brief affair with the young nephew of Colonel William Kendall who was of high social standing in the community. Pagan does a masterful job of describing the human aspect of the people surrounding each case. He ties the human element with the decisions made by the justices of the peace. These ties offer a clear understanding of the malleability of the laws and the legal modifications that were made by empowered justices. For example, indentured contracts became extremely pliable to local interests. Anne’s indenture was sold three times in two years, each was without her consent as would have been needed in England. The second sale of Anne’s indenture provoked the case of Waters v. Bishopp, in which Waters had discovered Anne’s pregnancy and sued Bishopp for breach of contract and selling a “faulty product”. The English followed the caveat emptor rule, in which a... ... middle of paper ... ...his seemingly routine case of fornication and premarital pregnancy proved to be significant for early American legal history. The unfolding of this story and the legal changes that it brought about makes evident that by the end of the seventeenth century, The Eastern Shore had shaped a distinct legal culture. The characters involved in each case also revealed the extent the powerful players were able to shape the law to their own self-interests. The goal of the powers to be was to protect property interests, protect personal reputation and liberty, and to maintain social order. Pagan writes a captivating story mingled with the challenges of the Eastern Shore legal system. This book gives a complete explanation backed up by research and similar cases as evidence of the ever-changing legal system. It should be a required reading for a history or law student.
This account of Mary Brown provides historians with insight into the social and legal practices of the 18th century. This case identifies the social unrest and anxiety regarding the popularity of theft, and in this case shoplifting. This case reiterates this units themes, including, the gendering of crime. London society believed shoplifter most often to be women. The Old Bailey records, reaffirm the notion of gendered crime, and that women were more often than men accused and convicted of shoplifting. However,
Ulrich shows a progression of change in the way that women’s sexuality was viewed in New England. First, she starts with a society that depended on “external rather internal controls” and where many New Englanders responded more to shame than guilt (Ulrich 96). The courts were used to punish sexual misconducts such as adultery with fines, whippings, or sometimes even death. There were certain behaviors that “respectable” women were expected to follow and “sexual misbehavior” resulted in a serious decline of a woman’s reputation from even just one neighbor calling her names such as whore or bawd (Ulrich 97-98). Because the love between a man and his wife was compared to the bond between Christ and the Church, female modesty was an important ideal. “Within marriage, sexual attraction promoted consort; outside marriage, it led to heinous sins” (Ulrich 108). This modesty was expected to be upheld even as death approached and is seen with the example of Mary Mansfield in 1681. Ulrich describes Mary to have five neck cloths tucked into her bosom and eleven caps covering her hair. “A good wife was to be physically attractive…but she was not to expose her beauty to every eye”. Hence, even as she died, Mary was required to conceal her sexuality and beauty. However, at the end of the seventeenth century and throughout the
In Colonial Virginia in 1661, Rebecca Nobles was sentenced to ten lashes for bearing an illegitimate child. Had she been an indentured servant she would also have been ordered to serve her master an additional two years to repay his losses incurred during her pregnancy. After 1662, had she been an enslaved African woman she would not have been prosecuted, because in that year the Colonial government declared children born to slave women the property of their mother's master. A child born to a slave brought increased wealth, whereas the child of an indentured servant brought increased financial responsibility. This evolving legislation in Colonial Virginia reflected elite planter interests in controlling women's sexuality for economic gain. Race is also defined and manipulated to reinforce the authority and economic power of elite white men who enacted colonial legislation. As historian Kathleen M. Brown demonstrates in her book Good Wives, Nasty Wenches and Anxious Patriarchs, the concepts of gender and race intersect as colonial Virginians consolidated power and defined their society. Indeed, gender and race were integral to that goal. In particular, planter manipulations of social categories had a profound effect on the economic and political climate in Colonial Virginia.
Jarret, Joseph G. "To Flee or Not to Flee: The Implications of Illinois v. Wardlow on the Practice of Criminal Law in." Florida Bar Journal LXXIV.6 (2000): 96.Web. 30 January 2011. .
John Ruston Pagan’s book, Anne Orthwood’s Bastard, is split into sections describing the different components of sex and law in early Virginia. Pagan describes these components through the story of Anne Orthwood, John Kendall, and their bastard son, Jasper. Anne Orthwood was born an illegitimate child. There was much shame and disgrace for illegitimate children. Although illegitimacy made Anne’s life especially hard, she also faced the same pressures as other members of her generation. Her generation was dealing with shortages of land and labor; increasing prices, rent, and unemployment rates; and declining wages. These struggles caused many people to emigrate from Britain to the Americas.
Both syntax and diction were largely presented as Polly Baker threw rhetorical questions of why she was being punished legally if it was only supposed to be a religious punishment. Even including that God, himself, helped make her children, even though it was a crime to have children without being married, and her children nicknamed, “Bastard Children.” When all put together “The Speech of Miss Polly Baker” creates a passionate tone that is fighting against the injustice of the judicial system at that
For more than a dozen years, Clarence Earl Gideon lay buried in a nondescript, unmarked grave in Hannibal, Missouri. Most Americans outside of the legal community (and many within it) would neither recognize Gideon's name, nor understand the seismic impact he had on our legal system. Fortunately, Anthony Lewis, the renowned journalist now retired from The New York Times, chronicled Gideon's saga from the filing of his hand-written petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court to the momentous decision of March 18, 1963. Lewis brings to life the story of the man behind the case, the legal machinations of the court appointed lawyer (and others working with him) toiling on Gideon's behalf and the inner-workings of the Supreme Court. By telling the story, Lewis has preserved an important piece of legal and social history and we are all the richer for his doing so.
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. 18 MAY 2006. The Avalon Project. 18 MAY
In this paper I will explain and discuss the historical events that took place in a small rural town in early Massachusetts. The setting for which is Irene Quenzler Brown's and Richard D. Brown's, The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler. I will explain the actions and motives of Hannah and Betsy Wheeler in seeking legal retribution of husband and father Ephraim Wheeler. I will also discuss the large scope of patriarchal power allowed by the law and that given to husbands and masters of households. Of course, this will also lead to discussions of what was considered abuse of these powers by society and the motivation for upholding the Supreme Court's decision to hang Ephraim Wheeler.
Valerie Martin’s Novel Property is an engrossing story of the wife of a slave owner and a slave, whom a mistress of the slave owner, during the late 18th century in New Orleans. Martin guides you through both, Manon Guadet and her servant Sarah’s lives, as Ms. Gaudet unhappily lives married on a plantation and Sarah unhappily lives on the plantation. Ms. Gaudet’s misserableness is derived from the misfortune of being married to a man that she despises and does not love. Sarah, the slave, is solely unhappy due to the fact that she is a slave, and has unwillingly conceived to children by Ms. Gaudiest husband, which rightfully makes Sarah a mistress. Throughout the book, Martin captivates the reader and enables you to place yourself in the characters shoes and it is almost as you can relate to how the characters are feeling.
Through a debate with Christopher A. Darden, an Associate Professor of Law at Southwestern School of Law in Los Angeles and Byron Warnken, a Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, they ex...
Smith, C. E. (2004). Public defenders. In T. Hall, U.S. Legal System (pp. 567-572-). [Ebscohost]. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook
Cornelia Hughes Dayton, the author of the article “Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village,” found in Women and Health in America, describes the common argument as to why abortion may have taken place. In the article Dayton discusses a couple, Sarah Grosvenor and Amasa Sessions, that had a sexual relationship that led to pregnancy, and then abortion in 1742, a time when abortion was not illegal, but was not accepted completely by society. The issue in the Grosvenor-Sessions case was that Grosvenor died after John Hallowell performed an abortion. A case was initiated three years after Sarah’s death to investigate her death as a murder committed by Hallowell, Sessions, Sarah’s sister, and her cousin (the last three being accessories to the murder). Sarah Grosvenor’s sister and cousin’s charges were dropped and no punishment occurred. For S...
[?] a Lady with numerous aristocratic connections sued for divorce from her husband, who ?had been unfaithful to her on their wedding night, had debauched all the maidservants in the house, had given his wife venereal disease, and was constantly drunk.? Her application was defeated after considerable parliamentary debate on the grounds that ?divorce by act of Parliament had traditionally been restricted to husbands, except when there were peculiarly aggravating circumstances like incest.? (34)
The miller’s daughter Malyne falls victim to the patriarchy’s denial of her personage, both through her father’s relegation of her as property and Cambridge law student Aleyn’s sexual reduction of her as a commodity. The latter denies her a chance to consent during his assault of her, as though she is an inanimate object that he may use how he pleases. As a woman, she is her father’s property under medieval law rather than a person of her own accord, meaning that a man does not need to gain her permission to engage with her but rather that of her father. However, as Aleyn wishes to exact revenge upon her father, this fungibility further allows him to consider his violation of her not as an atrocity against another human being but a crime against her father’s property (Barnett 6). Knowing her father’s theft instigated her assault, Malyne is willing to further the clerks’