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Nov. 9th, 2008 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI just finished reading
Medea and British Legislation before the First World War
Author(s): Edith Hall
I'd read most of it weeks ago but you know how longer articles seem to have made their point already and you wander off to something else? Er, or I do anyway. I did that on this one. And the ending didn't have anything new in substance, just in detail.
The detail is fascinating, if rather nasty.
The basic idea is that the history of performances of Medea, the adaptations in each version and the popularity of them, coincides fairly closely with campaigns and changes in legislation around women's rights in Britain.
I knew about the 1907 / votes for women end of things. But before that there were waves around legislation about divorce, custody of children, property, and not beating your wife.
The earliest versions didn't have Medea killing her children. Which seems to be rather missing the point from here, but some of them had her kill herself instead. Then later she killed her children but only while insane. Maternal love was 'natural' and jealous vindictiveness was 'unnatural' so nobody believed a Medea who killed her children to hurt her husband... at least until last century.
I knew that divorce wasn't legally possible until 18somethingorother. Required a private act of parliament. But I hadn't put together that married women couldn't own property in their own name, it all belonged to their husband. So a man could marry a woman, bugger off, and still take all her income. Not just what she had when he dumped her, everything she ever got! And no legal way to fix it, because no divorce. That's just nasty. Also, custody of children automatically went to the father. Later it went to the mother up until they were 7 and then the father got them back. Women getting custody was a relatively late development. Urgh. And even when there was divorce, a woman couldn't get it as easily as a man.
So then Medea was used as a myth to explore the ramifications of new debates and new laws. If Medea can't have her children, what will she do to them? If she does keep them what will happen to them? And how badly off she is now Jason can divorce her at all! So it was a very dramatic way of showing sides of the hot button issues of the day.
So the waves of Medea's popularity as a play coincided with different waves of political feminism, concluding with the last wave starting in the 70s.
If I can't find a way of working that into the timed essay I'll be very much surprised.
... if I can remember any of the relevant dates I'll also be very much surprised.
Medea and British Legislation before the First World War
Author(s): Edith Hall
I'd read most of it weeks ago but you know how longer articles seem to have made their point already and you wander off to something else? Er, or I do anyway. I did that on this one. And the ending didn't have anything new in substance, just in detail.
The detail is fascinating, if rather nasty.
The basic idea is that the history of performances of Medea, the adaptations in each version and the popularity of them, coincides fairly closely with campaigns and changes in legislation around women's rights in Britain.
I knew about the 1907 / votes for women end of things. But before that there were waves around legislation about divorce, custody of children, property, and not beating your wife.
The earliest versions didn't have Medea killing her children. Which seems to be rather missing the point from here, but some of them had her kill herself instead. Then later she killed her children but only while insane. Maternal love was 'natural' and jealous vindictiveness was 'unnatural' so nobody believed a Medea who killed her children to hurt her husband... at least until last century.
I knew that divorce wasn't legally possible until 18somethingorother. Required a private act of parliament. But I hadn't put together that married women couldn't own property in their own name, it all belonged to their husband. So a man could marry a woman, bugger off, and still take all her income. Not just what she had when he dumped her, everything she ever got! And no legal way to fix it, because no divorce. That's just nasty. Also, custody of children automatically went to the father. Later it went to the mother up until they were 7 and then the father got them back. Women getting custody was a relatively late development. Urgh. And even when there was divorce, a woman couldn't get it as easily as a man.
So then Medea was used as a myth to explore the ramifications of new debates and new laws. If Medea can't have her children, what will she do to them? If she does keep them what will happen to them? And how badly off she is now Jason can divorce her at all! So it was a very dramatic way of showing sides of the hot button issues of the day.
So the waves of Medea's popularity as a play coincided with different waves of political feminism, concluding with the last wave starting in the 70s.
If I can't find a way of working that into the timed essay I'll be very much surprised.
... if I can remember any of the relevant dates I'll also be very much surprised.