Savage Gail
St. Mary's College of Maryland.
J Fam Hist. 2011;36(2):173-90. doi: 10.1177/0363199011398587.
A systematic sample of the petitions presented to the English Divorce Court from 1858 through 1908 makes it possible to assess the differential contribution of discrete social and economic subgroups to the litigation the Court oversaw. An examination of four of these -- the titled aristocracy, those employed in the theater, those in receipt of financial aid, and laborers -- shows that English divorce litigants exhibited a broader social profile than commonly attributed to it by the newspaper coverage of divorce litigation, which gave a skewed impression of its social profile. Analysis of these cases underscores the gendered, class, and geographically inflected demand for divorce in a judicial setting that imposed severe restrictions on access to divorce as a remedy for marital breakdown.
对1858年至1908年提交至英国离婚法庭的请愿书进行系统抽样，使得评估不同社会和经济子群体对法庭所监管诉讼的不同贡献成为可能。对其中四类群体——有头衔的贵族、剧院从业者、接受经济援助者和劳动者——的调查表明，英国离婚诉讼当事人展现出的社会面比离婚诉讼的报纸报道通常所呈现的更为广泛，报纸报道对其社会面给出了有偏差的印象。对这些案例的分析强调了在一个对通过离婚来补救婚姻破裂设置了严格限制的司法环境中，离婚在性别、阶级和地域方面的不同需求。
