Description
''Compulsively readable'' Times Literary Supplement''An outstanding work'' Philippa Gregory''A powerful narrative told with frankness and sensitivity'' Helen Fry, historian and author of Women In Intelligence''A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more they are beaten, the better they'll be.''So went the proverb quoted by a prominent MP in the Houses of Parliament in 1853. His words intended ironically in a debate about a rise in attacks on women summed up the prevailing attitude of the day, in which violence against women was waved away as a part and parcel of modern living a chilling seam of misogyny that had polluted both parliament and the law. But were things about to change?In this vivid and essential work of historical non-fiction, Kate Morgan explores the legal campaigns, test cases and individual injustices of the Victorian and Edwardian eras which fundamentally re-shaped the status of women under British law. These are seen through the untold stories of women whose cases
