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Claiming Justice: Paternity Affiliation in South Wales, 1870–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2013

GINGER S. FROST
GINGER S. FROST*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Howard College of Arts and Sciences, Samford University, 800 Lakeshore Drive, Birmingham, AL 35229, [email protected]
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Abstract:

This article surveys 226 affiliation cases from South Wales between 1870 and 1900. Detailed study reveals both the reasons why most women did not try to get maintenance, but also why they had high levels of success when they did so. Once a woman got to the hearing, the interests of magistrates and the poor law guardians helped them ‘find fathers’ for their children. The guardians in particular assisted women in bringing cases by the 1890s. The fact that affiliation suits centred on sexuality by definition meant that magistrates did not penalise women for sexual nonconformity any more than the men involved, although both sexes faced limitations on their behaviour. These cases also reveal a great deal about local customs and attitudes towards sexuality. In the end, affiliation suits merely removed the most glaring abuses rather than tackling the larger issue of support for unmarried mothers and their children.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , October 2013 , pp. 177 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

Notes

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55. Western Mail, 17th March 1879, 2. The case was dismissed due to lack of corroboration.

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84. Harris, Fury Never Leaves Us, pp. 81–6.

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87. Western Mail, 28th November 1876, 6.

88. Western Mail, 22nd May 1883, 4.

89. Western Mail, 26th September 1876, 6.

90. Western Mail, 31st January 1871, 2.

91. Western Mail, 20th July 1905, 6.

92. R.W. Ireland has argued that similar Welsh views of sexuality also influenced infanticide; see ‘“Perhaps my mother murdered me”: Child Death and the Law in Victorian Carmarthenshire’, in Christopher Brooks and Michael Lobban, eds, Communities and Courts in Britain, 1150–1900 (London, 1997), pp. 229–44.

93. Ginger Frost, ‘Promises Broken: Breach of Promise of Marriage in England and Wales’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rice University, 1991), pp. 109–11.