Resource Post 5

I'd like to continue my series of resource posts with another book that discusses household structure and domestic violence in early modern England: Domestic Dangers, by Laura Gowing.

This book is similar in a lot of ways to Dolan's Dangerous Familiars. Gowing's book, however, is much more focused on the role of women in society and in domestic violence, whereas Dolan takes a much broader approach to the subject matter. Gowing, in this book, provides a very thorough exploration of such topics as: gender, as it would have been perceived in early modern England, in the household domestic space and also in larger society; women and their interactions with the early modern court system; the importance of language (namely spoken language--few women read and wrote with much frequency) and of reputation in both societal and judicial aspects; and domestic violence (specifically, the link between adultery and domestic violence).

The one thing that I really like about Dolan's book is that, while it does examine a fairly broad subject, it does so while also linking back to literature of the period. As a literature student, that is fairly invaluable to me. Dolan also, however, considers judiciary documents from the period, as well as some historical pieces. Gowing, on the other hand, deals almost exclusively with court cases and court documents. This can be a really great source, then, if court cases and the early modern English legal system is what you're interested in. The really great thing about Gowing's book, too, is that she lists an extensive bibliography of primary (printed and unprinted) and secondary works, which makes it quite easy to find other sources about, well, practically any and every aspect of what Gowing discusses over the course of her book.

While I'm not entirely sure how much use I will get out of Gowing's book in working on my specific research topic (see my post from a few weeks ago), I have certainly gotten a fair bit of use from it in getting background information about early modern English society, particularly with regard to domestic violence and gender roles, and I have also used the bibliography to point me in the direction of several other sources (though, admittedly, I don't have access to the majority of the works she lists).

Anyhow, I hope to do a few more of these quick posts tonight, including one or two fairly specific journal article posts.