ABSTRACT

This essay begins with a series of disclaimers, the kind that advertisements for bank loans and automobile rentals put in small print. 1 First of all, I will put forth no new arguments and present no newly-found evidence on any point. What follows is intended as a primer, a starting place for study, and it relies heavily on other people's research and writing. Second, and related to that, an essay so brief and widely focussed necessarily deals in generalizations but everyone knows that generalizations can—and should—be qualified. “Generally,” “usually,” “most” have to be understood as hovering at the edges of (almost) all pronouncements. But most important of all, one cannot speak simply of “women” and their relation to the medieval English common law; for our purposes there is no such being as a “medieval Englishwoman.” That is the underlying theme of what follows.