| Popis: |
Chapter 3 turns to the records of parliament, examining measures that crossed the thin line between litigation and legislation. Parliament passed acts both private and public that honed its ability to end failed marriages through death, either civil and fictive or all too real. The chapter focuses on the developments that followed the Foljambe decision of 1602 in trying to resolve the disagreements and differences that had arisen around divorce. It addresses the so-called Bigamy Act of 1604 that criminalized marriage of a second spouse in the lifetime of the first, putting it in the context of other, failed measures to make adultery a capital offence. Turning to look more directly at adultery and bigamy as discussed in parliament—the body claiming to be the highest court of the land—lets us see from another angle the ramifying effects of coverture and of jurisdictional pluralism on marital separations in post-Reformation England. |
