Broken Engagements: The Action for Breach of Promise of Marriage and the Feminine Ideal, 1800-1940 (Oxford Studies in Modern Legal History) (Hardcover)
This text explores ideals of femininity during the 19th and early 20th centuries by charting responses to broken engagements. Interweaving a history of the legal remedies available for a broken promise of marriage with literary accounts from Dickens to Wodehouse, it offers an insight into modern attitudes to female identity.