Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in 19th-Century England and Wales

This book considers Section 21 of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 and its significant impact on previously invisible married women in the 19th century.

Tens of thousands of women used this little-known section of the Act to apply for orders from local magistrates'' courts to reclaim their rights of testation, inheritance, property ownership, and (dependent on local franchise qualificati...