The Politics of Domestic Authority in Britain since 1800

This collection of essays explores the broad range of influences which have shaped the distribution of authority within British homes and families - religion, commercial advertising, governments, welfare professionals, medical experts, psychologists and the law. This collection by some of the leading experts in the field examines the power struggles that have shaped domestic life in Britain since the early nineteenth century. Far from being the tranquil refuge from public life that Victorians liked to imagine, the home saw constant -- and often violent - contests for authority between husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and servants. This collection offers striking new insights into these relationships and looks at the way in which domestic authority was challenged by people or institutions outside the family, such as godparents, schools, and the legal system. The collection draws on social, cultural, legal and literary history, as well as social geography, to offer a critical assessment of some of the fundamental 'grand narratives' of modern British history: 'separate spheres', the rise of companionate marriage, the decline of deference, and sexual 'mutualism'. The Politics of Domestic Authority will appeal to anyone interested in recent work on the home, childhood, welfare systems, the family, generation, and gender in modern British and Irish history Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction: The Politics of Domestic Authority in Britain Since 1800....Pages 1-24 Front Matter....Pages 25-25 ‘I am master here’: Illegitimacy, Masculinity, and Violence in Victorian England....Pages 27-42 ‘... the instrument of an animal function’: Marital Rape and Sexual Cruelty in the Divorce Court, 1858–1908....Pages 43-57 Front Matter....Pages 59-59 Irish Orphans and the Politics of Domestic Authority....Pages 61-83 Fatherhood and Family Shame: Masculinity, Welfare and the Workhouse in Late Nineteenth-Century England....Pages 84-108 Front Matter....Pages 109-109 ‘Tiresome trips downstairs’: Middle-Class Domestic Space and Family Relationships in England, 1850–1910....Pages 111-131 Love and Authority in Mid-Twentieth-Century Marriages: Sharing and Caring....Pages 132-154 ‘A paradise on earth, a foretaste of heaven’: English Catholic Understandings of Domesticity and Marriage, 1945–1965....Pages 155-181 Front Matter....Pages 183-183 Domestic Servants as Poachers of Print: Reading, Authority and Resistance in Late Victorian Britain....Pages 185-203 Authority, Dependence and Power in Accounts of Twentieth-Century Domestic Service....Pages 204-220 Front Matter....Pages 221-221 Child Care and Neglect: A Comparative Local Study of Late Nineteenth-Century Parental Authority....Pages 223-242 Godfathering: The Politics of Victorian Family Relations....Pages 243-260 “Beating Children is Wrong”: Domestic Life, Psychological Thinking and the Permissive Turn....Pages 261-283 Back Matter....Pages 284-291 This collection by some of the leading experts in the field examines the power struggles that have shaped domestic life in Britain since the early nineteenth century. Far from being the tranquil refuge from public life that Victorians liked to imagine, the home saw constant 6 and often violent - contests for authority between husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and servants. This collection offers striking new insights into these relationships and looks at the way in which domestic authority was challenged by people or institutions outside the family, such as godparents, schools, and the legal system. The collection draws on social, cultural, legal and literary history, as well as social geography, to offer a critical assessment of some of the fundamental 'grand narratives' of modern British history: 'separate spheres', the rise of companionate marriage, the decline of deference, and sexual 'mutualism'. The Politics of Domestic Authority will appeal to anyone interested in recent work on the home, childhood, welfare systems, the family, generation, and gender in modern British and Irish history