History Commons^™

Cuckoldry And The “Gone For A Soldier” Narrative: Infidelity And Performance Among Eighteenth-Century English Plebeians, Elias Hubbard

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This project addresses existing historical arguments about the role of performance in eighteenth-century English plebeian infidelity cases, identifying some of the cultural scripts available to married men and women from popular texts in order to better understand cases of infidelity in contemporary plebeian marriages. The thesis seeks to clarify the effect of infidelity on a plebeian individual’s social standing and relationships, and to draw conclusions about the nature of plebeian infidelity, marriage, and gender in England through the long eighteenth century.

While examining contemporary public texts of cuckoldry, I address how homosocial behavior appears in narratives of cuckoldry, how the …

The Examination Of Inconsistencies Among The Misconception, Ideology, And Reality Of The Punishment Of Male And Female Adulterers Through Letters And Court Records, Julie Ho Lely

Young Historians Conference

Due to the misogynistic roots of history, many scholars believe that female adulterers were punished more harshly than male adulterers; however, the wholistic examination of religion, gender norms, and medieval law reveal that despite the church’s ideology of equal condemnation of male and female adulterers, in reality, male adulterers were punished more frequently than women. By addressing the misconceptions, ideologies, and realities relating to adultery, this enables us to comprehend how social norms, law, and religion mutually influence each other while also revealing inconsistencies between the different fields. This paper focuses on adultery cases in the medieval times and examines …