Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Common Law As Silver Slippers, Bridget J. Crawford
The Common Law As Silver Slippers, Bridget J. Crawford
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Professor Anita Bernstein's book, The Common Law Inside the Female Body, is an erudite investigation into the history and operation of the common law. Bernstein's careful and wide-ranging study leads to her arresting thesis: The common law--an old, unpredictable, and slow system that has been there all along--has tremendous power to support and even advance women's legal claims to personal liberty. In other words, women have always had the common law right to be treated equally to men. We simply have not realized it.
Bernstein makes a convincing argument that the common law tradition has a unifying theoretical commitment: “[T]he …