Women, Money, and the Law

作者:Warren, Joyce W.

页数:320

出版时间:2005-12

价格:$ 51.98

isbn号码:9780877459538

具体描述

Did 19th-century American women have money of their own? To answer this question, Women, Money, and the Law looks at the public and private stories of individual women within the context of American culture, assessing how legal and cultural traditions affected women's lives, particularly with respect to class and racial differences, and analyzing the ways in which women were involved in economic matters. Joyce Warren has uncovered a vast, untapped archive of legal documents from the New York Supreme Court that had been expunged from the official record. By exploring hundreds of court cases involving women litigants between 1845 and 1875--women whose stories had, in effect, been erased from history--and by studying the lives and works of a wide selection of 19th-century women writers, Warren has found convincing evidence of women's involvement with money. The court cases show that in spite of the most egregious gender restrictions of law and custom, many 19th-century women lived independently, coping with the legal and economic restraints of their culture while making money for themselves and often for their families as well. They managed their lives and their money with courage and tenacity and fractured constructed gender identities by their lived experience. Many women writers, even when they did not publicly advocate economic independence for women, supported themselves and their families throughout their writing careers and in their fiction portrayed the importance of money in women's lives. Women from all backgrounds--some defeated through ignorance and placidity, others as ruthless and callous as the most hardened businessmen--were in fact very much a part of the money economy.Together, the evidence of the court cases and the writers runs counter to the official narrative, which scripted women as economically dependent and financially uninvolved. Warren provides an illuminating counternarrative that significantly questions contemporary assumptions about the lives of 19th-century women. Women, Money, and the Law is an important corrective to the traditional view and will fascinate scholars and students in women's studies, literary studies, and legal history as well as the general reader.

用户评价

这本书的阅读体验，对我来说更像是一次关于“看不见的契约”的觉醒之旅。我一直以为，在当代社会，经济上的机会是相对平等的，直到这本书的某些章节，特别是关于信贷和公司董事会席位的分配部分，彻底颠覆了我的认知。作者运用了大量的数据可视化和统计分析，但她处理数据的方式非常具有文学性，她让冰冷的数字开口说话，讲述那些被主流经济学叙事所忽略的故事。我特别喜欢作者在语言运用上那种轻盈而锐利的风格，她总能在看似平铺直叙的描述中，暗藏一剂辛辣的讽刺。比如她描述早期银行家如何巧妙地利用“共同财产”的法律漏洞来规避个人风险时，那种语调，让人在捧腹之余，又感到脊背发凉。这本书没有给我提供简单的“解决方案”，它只是把我们置于一个极其复杂的现实面前，让我们直面这种结构性的不平等是如何通过法律的“中立性”被合法化的。这是一种让人不安，但又无比清晰的阅读体验。

坦白说，这本书的开篇让我有些吃力，因为其中涉及的早期普通法概念和庄园制度下的财产转移规则，对于非法律专业出身的读者来说门槛稍高。但是，一旦熬过了最初的几章，那种豁然开朗的感觉是无与伦比的。作者在这里展现了一种罕见的耐心，她没有跳过那些基础性的法律概念，而是耐心地解释了它们是如何一步步演化，最终影响到现代婚姻财产制度的。她的叙事结构非常精妙，像是一部精心编排的交响乐，从低沉、复杂的引子开始，逐渐引入明快、高亢的主题乐章。我尤其欣赏她在批判资本主义结构性问题时所保持的学术克制，她将焦点牢牢地锁定在“法律工具”本身，而不是进行空泛的道德谴责。这本书真正厉害的地方在于，它证明了法律语言并非是绝对客观的，它永远是被特定时代的权力意图所塑造和利用的工具。读完之后，我对所有法律文件都会多一个审视的眼光，这无疑是这本书带给我最宝贵的财富。

读完这本书，我感觉像是经历了一场漫长而艰辛的学术探险，作者的严谨程度令人叹为观止。她似乎跑遍了所有相关的档案馆和历史文献库，将那些散落在时间尘埃中的判例和立法草案重新打捞出来，拼凑成一幅宏大而又细节丰富的历史画卷。这本书的行文风格非常内敛和克制，不像某些社会评论那样充满激昂的口号，而是用无可辩驳的事实和逻辑链条，一步步地将读者带入她构建的论证迷宫。尤其在讨论特定时期金融工具的法律地位演变时，作者展现了深厚的经济史功底，她没有简单地指责“不公”，而是深入挖掘了技术革新与法律滞后性之间的微妙张力。这使得全书的论点具有极强的穿透力，因为它不是基于道德判断，而是基于对系统运作机制的深刻理解。我个人认为，这本书的专业深度足以作为研究生级别的参考教材，因为它强迫读者超越表面现象，去追溯制度的起源和演变路径，这才是真正有价值的知识。

这本书给我最深的印象是其跨学科的广度和视野的开阔性。它不仅仅是一部法律史著作，更是一部结合了社会学、经济史甚至性别研究的综合性分析报告。作者的论述跳脱出了传统的法律学院派的视野，她将法律条文放置在更广阔的社会变革背景下进行考察。比如，在探讨女性获得独立银行账户权利的章节中，作者不仅梳理了法律的进展，更联系了两次世界大战期间女性劳动力参与率的变化，以及社会对“家庭经济单位”概念的重塑。这种多维度的交叉分析，使得她的结论极具说服力。我感觉作者仿佛是一位高明的策展人，将散落在不同学科领域的碎片证据，巧妙地组合在一起，形成了一个关于“经济自主权是如何被法律授予（或剥夺）”的完整展览。这本书的语言风格是充满活力的，充满了对历史进程中那些沉默声音的致敬，它激励着我们去质疑那些被时间漂白、看似理所当然的规则。

这本书简直是洞察社会结构与个人命运交织点的绝佳范本，它以一种近乎手术刀般精确的笔触，剖析了经济权力如何在法律框架下被重新分配，或者更准确地说，是如何被系统性地固化在特定群体手中。我尤其欣赏作者在处理复杂的法律条文时所展现出的叙事能力，她没有让枯燥的法条成为阻碍，反而将其塑造成推动情节发展的关键力量。阅读过程中，我不断地被引导去思考，那些我们习以为常的“常识”背后，究竟隐藏着多少历史遗留的偏见和精心设计的壁垒。特别是关于财产继承权和婚姻法改革那几章，作者通过引入多个跨越不同世纪的真实案例，生动地展示了法律文本如何从冰冷的铅字，转化为影响无数女性一生财务自由的无形枷锁。那种层层递进的论证，让人在感到愤怒的同时，也升起了对未来变革的期盼。这本书的价值不仅在于揭示问题，更在于它提供了一种理解现代社会运行逻辑的全新视角，对于任何想深入了解权力与性别动态关系的人来说，都是一本不可或缺的案头书。