000			01404nam a2200193Ia 4500
999			_c172603 _d172603
005			20220225225414.0
008			200208s9999 xx 000 0 und d
020			_a9781107017009
082			_a306.8830942 DUN
100			_aDunn, Caroline
245		0	_aStolen women in medival England : rape, abduction and adultery, 1100-1500
260			_aCambridge
260			_bCambridge University Press
260			_c2013
300			_a261p.
520			_aThis study of illicit sexuality in medieval England explores links between marriage and sex, law and disorder, and property and power. Some medieval Englishwomen endured rape or were kidnapped for forced marriages, yet most ravished women were married and many 'wife-thefts' were not forced kidnappings but cases of adultery fictitiously framed as abduction by abandoned husbands. In pursuing the themes of illicit sexuality and non-normative marital practices, this work analyses the nuances of the key Latin term raptus and the three overlapping offences that it could denote: rape, abduction and adultery. This investigation broadens our understanding of the role of women in the legal system; provides a means for analysing male control over female bodies, sexuality and access to the courts; and reveals ways in which female agency could, on occasion, manoeuvre around such controls.
650			_aAbduction-England-History
942			_cB _2ddc