Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old SouthIn this richly detailed and imaginatively researched study, Victoria Bynum investigates "unruly" women in central North Carolina before and during the Civil War. Analyzing the complex and interrelated impact of gender, race, class, and region on the lives of black and white women, she shows how their diverse experiences and behavior reflected and influenced the changing social order and political economy of the state and region. Her work expands our knowledge of black and white women by studying them outside the plantation setting. Bynum searched local and state court records, public documents, and manuscript collections to locate and document the lives of these otherwise ordinary, obscure women. Some appeared in court as abused, sometimes abusive, wives, as victims and sometimes perpetrators of violent assaults, or as participants in ilicit, interracial relationships. During the Civil War, women freqently were cited for theft, trespassing, or rioting, usually in an effort to gain goods made scarce by war. Some women were charged with harboring evaders or deserters of the Confederacy, an act that reflected their conviction that the Confederacy was destroying them. These politically powerless unruly women threatened to disrupt the underlying social structure of the Old South, which depended on the services and cooperation of all women. Bynum examines the effects of women's social and sexual behavior on the dominant society and shows the ways in which power flowed between private and public spheres. Whether wives or unmarried, enslaved or free, women were active agents of the society's ordering and dissolution. |
Contents
One Race Class and Gender | 15 |
Epilogue | 151 |
Bibliography | 203 |
Copyright | |
1 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abuse Actions Concerning Slaves Adam Crooks African American Antebellum North Carolina apprenticed Apprenticeship Bonds Bastardy Bastardy Bonds behavior Civil War Documentary Confederacy Confederate County's Criminal Action Papers Criminal Actions Concerning deserters Divorce Records Escott farm farmers father Fayetteville Observer Federal Manuscript Census female former slave fornication free black women gender Governor Vance Granville County Guilford County Hobgood household Hulin Hurley husband illegitimate indicted interracial James John Justice labor lived Lucas marriage married Martha Mary masters miscegenation Montgomery County Moore mother mulatto murder Nancy NCDAH neighbors nonslaveholding North Carolina Piedmont Nuttall Orange County percent Persons of Color petition plantation planter class political poor women poorhouse prostitution race racial Randolph County rape Ruffin Sarah sexual slave slave women slaveholders slavery Slaves and Free social society South Southern Honor Superior Court Thomas Ruffin tion U.S. Federal Manuscript wealth Wesleyan wife William William Woods Holden Williford wives woman Wyatt-Brown