Alienated Affections

Download or read book Alienated Affections written by Leneman Leah Leneman and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-05 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal accounts of adultery, cruelty, desertion and nullity fill this exposition of divorce and separation in Scotland in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Leah Leneman brings vividly to life the marriages and affairs, loves and hates, tenderness and harshness experienced by men and women whose marriages broke down in this period. Their stories, told in their own words, come from the entire spectrum of Scottish society, from the aristocracy to the 'common' people. Contrary to popular belief, divorce and legal separation were available on equal terms to men and women in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scotland. Alienated Affections offers an overall picture of this phenomenon, richly illustrated by the experiences of individuals.