Cruelty and Companionship: Conflict in Nineteenth Century Married Life

Cruelty and Companionship is an account of the intimate but darker side of marriage in Victorian and Edwardian England. Hammerton draws upon previously unpublished material from the records of the divorce court and matrimonial proceedings in magistrates' courts to challenge many popular views about changing family patterns. His findings open a rare window on to the sexual politics of everyday life and the routine tensions which conditioned marriage in middle- and working-class families. Using contemporary evidence ranging from prescriptive texts and public debate to autobiography and fiction, Hammerton examines the intense public scrutiny which accompanied the routine exposure of marital breakdown, and charts a growing critique of men's behaviour in marriage which increasingly demanded regulation and reform. The critical discourse which resulted, ranging from paternalist to feminist, casts new light on the origins and trajectory of nineteenth-century feminism, legal change and our understanding of the changing expression of masculinity.
Cruelty and Companionship will appeal to students and teachers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century social history, women's studies, the history of the family, of feminism, women and masculinity. It should also interest students of family sociology and social work, and general readers interested in family relationships, domestic violence and women.