A Tale of Two Countries: Divorce in England and Prussia, 1670–1794

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saskia Lettmaier
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Legislative History ◽  
Legal Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law

Abstract Why did two leading European countries (Prussia and England), which at first sight appeared to have much in common, enact radically different divorce legislation during the eighteenth century? This Article takes a close look at each country’s reforms, their legislative history, and their likely effects in an effort to tease out what motives lay behind them. And by connecting the legal changes to the countries’ sociopolitical and intellectual structures, it goes on to explain why the reforms were so different. The Article’s findings are relevant not only for the history of the law of divorce, but also for the broader issue of what forces play a role in the evolution of the law. Today, few would doubt the proposition that there are social and ideological “causes” of legal development. However, what these causes are and in what combination they have to be present for a legal change to occur are questions that are rarely examined in any detail.

The Use of Vattel in the American Law of Nations

2012 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
American Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law

Although careful scholarly treatment of the history of international law is now thriving, within U.S. courts that history now begins with one eighteenth-century treatise published in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1758 and published in translation for modern readers under the aegis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1916. This treatise is Emer de Vattel’s Droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains. My aim in this article is to appraise the elevation of Vattel to vaunted originalist heights in U.S. law. The claim that Vattel’s theory of the law of nations completely represents how the Founding Fathers (Founders) understood the law of nations should be rejected as a matter of history.

THE INFANTICIDAL MOTHER

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 632-632
Author(s):  
Maria W. Piers
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Excessive Pressure ◽  
Unwed Mother ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Western Civilization

Discrimination against the unwed mother runs like a red thread through the history of Western civilization. It became blatant in eighteenth-century France (and Germany and, undoubtedly, in other European countries). It did not matter how the infant had been conceived, i.e., by way of rape, excessive pressure, prostitution as a means to stay alive; the father was only interesting as a source of money. Whatever punishable acts were committeed, such as abandonment or killing of a baby, the guilt was fastened exclusively on the mother, and the penalty was usually a cruel death ... the condemned woman was faced with a variety of death penalties, of which decapitation was considered the most merciful. Other means were burial alive, impalement, and "sacking" (drowning), which was frequently the penalty of choice.... The infanticidal mother was stuffed into a black sack together with a dog, a cat, a rooster, or a viper. The sack had to remain under water for six hours and the choir boys sang "Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu Dir." Then the deceased was interred.

How violent was eighteenth-century Ireland?

1997 ◽  
Vol 30 (119) ◽  
pp. 377-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal Garnham
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Popular Protest ◽  
Ancient Regime ◽  
History Of ◽  
Typical Part ◽  
The Law

In his recent book dealing with the history of duelling in Ireland, James Kelly comes to the conclusion that eighteenth-century Ireland was essentially ‘a violent society’, peopled at least in part ‘by wilful men who put their individual reputations above their lives, their families, their religion, and the law’. Such comments seem to continue a well-established tradition of interpretation that goes back to the nineteenth century. However, this image of a society in which violence was endemic, and conflict a feature of everyday life, has not gone unquestioned by historians. For example, Thomas Bartlett and Sean Connolly have instead noted the relatively controlled nature of popular protest, the early disappearance of banditry, and the reliance, until the very end of the century, on local enforcement of the law, as possible indications that Ireland may not have been as disorderly a society as has been suggested. These differing interpretations have, in turn, an obvious relevance to the wider debate on how eighteenth-century Ireland should be perceived: as a society irreconcilably and uniquely divided by religious and ethnic conflicts, or as a more or less typical part of the European ancient régime.

History of Life Assurance in the United Kingdom (Continued)

1886 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Cornelius Walford
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Life Assurance ◽  
Important Principle ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
One Year

A case arose about this time—the middle of the eighteenth century—which, as it illustrated some points in practice and an important principle in the law of Insurance, I will briefly review. It is the case of Cleeve v. Gascoigne. In June 1749, the defendant (Gascoigne) had applied to an Office-keeper, or Broker, to insure £1,600 for one year at 5 per-cent on the life of one Poulton, from whom the defendant had agreed to purchase an estate, whereof Poulton had the reversion in fee, and also an intervening interest for his own life.

scholarly journals Феномен самоубийства в России XVIII в.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Александр Каменский
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Emotional Perception ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military

The history of suicide in Russia, especially prior to the nineteenth century, remains understudied. While in most European countries the process of decriminalization and secularization of suicide was underway, in Russia, with the introduction of the Military Article of 1715, it was formally criminalized. On the basis of the study of more than 350 newly examined archival cases, this article examines how the transfer of suicide investigations to secular authorities also entailed secularization, while the peculiarities of the Russian judicial and investigative system, as well as lacunae in the legislation, actually led to the gradual decriminalization of suicide. At the same time, although among Russians, as well as among other peoples, a number of superstitions were associated with suicide, there is no evidence in the archival documents studied in this article of a particularly emotional perception of suicide. The phenomenon of suicide in eighteenth-century Russia, when compared to early modern Europe, did not have any significant, fundamental differences. However, the features of the Russian judicial-investigative system made this phenomenon less public, less visible and less significant for public consciousness.  

scholarly journals Paying for America’s Elections: The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 and Information Access

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Rachel Condon
Keyword(s):  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Information Access ◽  
American People ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Legislative History ◽  
Election Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law

This paper provides an overview of the legislative history of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), known popularly as McCain-Feingold. It will also explore the challenges to the act in the courts. The paper will conclude with a review of access to campaign finance reports resulting from the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. With a rich legislative history that spans several Congresses as well as a history of judicial interventions which have shaped the law as it stands today, it is pertinent that the American people have access to information associated with the law so as to better understand the federal election process and assess its strengths and weaknesses in advance of the 2020 elections.

scholarly journals CHURCH AUTONOMY, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, AND EMPLOYMENT POLICY IN BRITAIN: A LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE EMPLOYMENT PROVISIONS OF THE EQUALITY ACT 2010

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-191
Author(s):  
Jerold Waltman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Employment Policy ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
Legislative History ◽  
Liberal Pluralism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Moment

How much autonomy should religious institutions have when they employ paid staff? This paper lays out two contrasting models, blanket liberalism and liberal pluralism, that come into play in this area. It then examines in some detail how Parliament dealt with the issue as it considered the Equality Act 2010, especially as the law pertained to sexual orientation. Although the Labour government would have liked to have pushed the country more toward blanket liberalism, in the end it left the law as it was, which was a victory, for the moment at least, for those churches who wished to retain their present degree of autonomy.

Blackstone

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John V. Orth
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
First Century ◽  
Legal Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University ◽  
Law Professors

This chapter focuses on Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780), the author of the most important book in the history of the common law. The four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769) and the series of lectures Blackstone delivered at Oxford from 1753, changed the way lawyers thought about the law. Blackstone’s Commentaries were read by more people, non-lawyers as well as lawyers, than any other English law book. Their influence is difficult to overstate, and extends into the twenty-first century. Almost as momentous was Blackstone’s influence on legal education. While gradual, the transfer of legal education from the law office and the courts to the university, which Blackstone pioneered, had an enormous impact on legal development, as law professors contributed to the formation of generations of lawyers and themselves came to play a significant role in legal development.

Section 1031 Like-Kind Exchanges: Review of the Past and Proposal for the Future

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Edward J. Schnee ◽  
Shane R. Stinson
Keyword(s):  
Dual Use ◽  
Legislative History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Policy Suggestions ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
Over Time

ABSTRACT Congress created the tax-free exchange of like-kind property over 90 years ago and has since made several revisions to the law to prevent tax abuse and limit its application. However, the like-kind exchange rules, now governed by Section 1031, are expanding over time. In this article, we review the legislative history of Section 1031 and recently proposed changes to the law. In line with recent proposals, we recommend that Congress eliminate the special tax treatment granted to like-kind exchanges. However, in the event that Congress is unable or unwilling to make such a change, we also offer policy suggestions to limit current abuses of the like-kind provision relating to exchanges of investment property, the use of qualified intermediaries in non-simultaneous exchanges, and exchanges involving dual-use property.

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