In 1816 when Lord Byron's wife, Annabella Millbank, left him after six months of unremitting psychological abuse, she could not seek a legal separation on her own. Rather, her father had to sue Byron for breach of marriage contract, claiming damage to property (his daughter) entrusted to Byron accompanied by a large sum of money (the dowry). This was the only course of action that Mrs. Byron could take because she did not exist in the eyes of the law as a separate and independent legal entity. The suit for separation, therefore, took place between the two men (Byron and Annabella's father) who had negotiated the marriage contract.

With these kinds of stories in mind, this course will explore women's legal history (or lack thereof) through literary, historical, and legal scholarly texts. We will take up the ways in which women's legal--and therefore political, social, and economic--status has changed over the last 200 years of British and American history. More importantly, however, the seminar will explore the ways in which the law has shaped, if not constituted, women's identities in Anglo-American culture--controlling not only women's ability to own property and divorce, but also such fundamental things as how they are represented in fiction, in Congress, and in the legal system. Rather than being a traditional law school course, this seminar will have a broad interdisciplinary focus and will base itself in discussion and intellectual exchange rather than lectures and socratic method. We will therefore read literary texts by Anne Bronte, Wilkie Collins, Thomas Hardy, and Mary Wollstonecraft; political and philosophical texts by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Carole Pateman; historical texts by Anna Clark and Lawrence Stone; and legal texts by Kimberl Crenshaw, Catherine MacKinnon, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia Williams. There will be a number of short response papers as well as a final paper.