Gay Lotharios and Innocent Eves: Child Maintenance, Masculinities and the Action for Breach of Promise of Marriage in Colonial Australia

Simmonds, AP

Gay Lotharios and Innocent Eves: Child Maintenance, Masculinities and the Action for Breach of Promise of Marriage in Colonial Australia

Simmonds, AP

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Publisher:: Federation Press
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Law in Context, 2016, 34 (1), pp. 58 - 75
Issue Date:: 2016-03-31

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Simmonds, AP https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8204-2321	en_US
dc.date.issued	2016-03-31	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Law in Context, 2016, 34 (1), pp. 58 - 75	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0811-5796	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/122670
dc.description.abstract	This article will focus upon the action for breach of promise of marriage in colonial Australia to reflect more broadly on the legal regulation of intimacy. Drawing upon a database of 211 breach of promise cases, I seek to explain a contradiction: almost half of the female plaintiffs in my study had illegitimate children, although a lack of virtue operated as a complete defence for (predominantly) male defendants. In spite of this, a vast majority of the women were successful. This paradox is clarified through an examination of the action in contract treatises and through an analysis of the way that the action operated as a supplement to maintenance for women with children. I conclude with a close study of a breach of promise case involving illegitimacy, as a means of examining the informal and formal norms governing love (and its discontents) in colonial Australia	en_US
dc.publisher	Federation Press	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Law in Context	en_US
dc.title	Gay Lotharios and Innocent Eves: Child Maintenance, Masculinities and the Action for Breach of Promise of Marriage in Colonial Australia	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	1	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	34	en_US
utslib.location.activity	Australia	en_US
utslib.for	1801 Law	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Law
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.consider-herdc	true	en_US
pubs.issue	1	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	34	en_US

Abstract:

This article will focus upon the action for breach of promise of marriage in colonial Australia to reflect more broadly on the legal regulation of intimacy. Drawing upon a database of 211 breach of promise cases, I seek to explain a contradiction: almost half of the female plaintiffs in my study had illegitimate children, although a lack of virtue operated as a complete defence for (predominantly) male defendants. In spite of this, a vast majority of the women were successful. This paradox is clarified through an examination of the action in contract treatises and through an analysis of the way that the action operated as a supplement to maintenance for women with children. I conclude with a close study of a breach of promise case involving illegitimacy, as a means of examining the informal and formal norms governing love (and its discontents) in colonial Australia

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/122670