Rings of power: a legal history of the engagement ring in early twentieth-century Australia

Simmonds, A

Rings of power: a legal history of the engagement ring in early twentieth-century Australia

Simmonds, A

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Publisher:: TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: History Australia, 2024, 21, (3), pp. 398-415
Issue Date:: 2024-01-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Simmonds, A https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8204-2321
dc.date.accessioned	2024-11-22T03:51:41Z
dc.date.available	2024-11-22T03:51:41Z
dc.date.issued	2024-01-01
dc.identifier.citation	History Australia, 2024, 21, (3), pp. 398-415
dc.identifier.issn	1449-0854
dc.identifier.issn	1833-4881
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/182077
dc.description.abstract	This article explores the gendered regulation of courtship by providing a legal history of the engagement ring across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bringing the relationship between love, law, material culture and gender into dialogue, I use actions for breach of promise of marriage to trace the life path of the ring from the private world of romance to the moral theatre of law, examining how the ring functioned as tangible proof of contract, as a constraint on women’s sexuality, as a legitimation of their sexual identities, and as compensation for economic losses suffered in consequences of a broken engagement. Rather than a top-down analysis of how the state orders intimate life, this is a study of the vernacular life of law: of why people began imbuing rings with legal significance and how courts came to accept their reasoning.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
dc.relation.ispartof	History Australia
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1080/14490854.2024.2375367
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject	2003 Language Studies, 2103 Historical Studies
dc.subject.classification	4302 Heritage, archive and museum studies
dc.subject.classification	4303 Historical studies
dc.title	Rings of power: a legal history of the engagement ring in early twentieth-century Australia
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	21
utslib.for	2003 Language Studies
utslib.for	2103 Historical Studies
pubs.organisational-group	University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Law
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
dc.rights.license	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.date.updated	2024-11-22T03:51:40Z
pubs.issue	3
pubs.publication-status	Published
pubs.volume	21
utslib.citation.issue	3

Abstract:

This article explores the gendered regulation of courtship by providing a legal history of the engagement ring across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bringing the relationship between love, law, material culture and gender into dialogue, I use actions for breach of promise of marriage to trace the life path of the ring from the private world of romance to the moral theatre of law, examining how the ring functioned as tangible proof of contract, as a constraint on women’s sexuality, as a legitimation of their sexual identities, and as compensation for economic losses suffered in consequences of a broken engagement. Rather than a top-down analysis of how the state orders intimate life, this is a study of the vernacular life of law: of why people began imbuing rings with legal significance and how courts came to accept their reasoning.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/182077