In the late 18th century, the English jurist William Blackstone famously described property as "that sole and despotic dominion." What Blackstone meant was that property was an "absolute right, inherent in every Englishman . . . which consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of all acquisitions without any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land." In light of the intervening 250 years of colonization, Blackstone's "despotic dominion" has assumed new and more ambiguous meanings. It is the ambiguity of the meanings of property and the tensions that were and still...
In the late 18th century, the English jurist William Blackstone famously described property as "that sole and despotic dominion." What Blackstone m...
Women, Property, and the Letters of the Law in Early Modern England examines the competing narratives of property told by and about women in the early modern period. Through letters, legal treatises, case law, wills, and works of literature, the contributors explore women's complex roles as subjects and agents in commercial and domestic economies, and as objects shaped by a network of social and legal relationships. By constructing conversations across the disciplinary boundaries of legal and social history, sociology and literary criticism, the collection explores a diverse range...
Women, Property, and the Letters of the Law in Early Modern England examines the competing narratives of property told by and about women in...
