Abstract:
Examines rape prosecutions in 18th-century Massachusetts, contending that rape was seen as an expression of male control over women and was regulated by law in a way that served the men who held political power more than it protected women. It is concluded that as long as the conditions that discouraged rape remained—small close-knit communities that discouraged free sexual expression by men outside of wedlock and in which few women lived alone—rape rates in Massachusetts were kept low.
Citation:
- Lindemann, B.S. (1984). “To Ravish and Carnally Know”: Rape in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 10(1), 63-82.
Source Link:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3174237
Keywords
Peoples: New Englanders | Places: Massachusetts and New England | Topics: Rape | DNA Type: -