Metalcraft Theory and Practice (Metric ed)

The English marriage is unique. Long after the rest of Europe and neighbouring Scotland had reformed their marriage laws, England clung to the chaotic and contradictory laws of the medieval Church, making it all too easy to enter into a marriage but virtually impossible to end an unhappy one.

IfEngland was a 'paradise for wives', it could only have been through the feistiness of the women.

Married women were placed in the same legal category as lunatics.

Not until 1870 could they even retain their own property.

But then marriage was all about property in a society which was both mercenary and violent.

With a cast of hundreds, from Margaret Paston to Heather Mills McCartney, and drawing on intimate letters, diaries, memoirs, court documents and advice books, Maureen Waller traces the evolution of the English marriage.

It is a frank, salacious, and often shocking portrait of a people.