No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies

By Linda K. Kerber,

Book cover of No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship

Book description

This pioneering study redefines women's history in the United States by focusing on civic obligations rather than rights. Looking closely at thirty telling cases from the pages of American legal history, Kerber's analysis reaches from the Revolution, when married women did not have the same obligation as their husbands to…

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Why read it?

1 author picked No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Linda Kerber’s No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies offers a fantastic insight into the maleness of rights-bearing citizenship embedded within the United States legal tradition. As Kerber demonstrates, the notion that women were incapable of performing certain civic obligations formed a central reason for why early U.S. political and legal authorities had excluded women from certain rights of citizenship. I found Kerber’s study especially helpful for dissecting the history of the common law tradition of domestic relations, or the doctrine known as coverture. As I discuss in the first chapters of my own book, and as Kerber brilliantly illustrates in…

Want books like No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies?

Our community of 10,000+ authors has personally recommended 22 books like No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies.

Browse books like No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in citizenship, civil rights, and equality?

10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about citizenship, civil rights, and equality.

Citizenship Explore 16 books about citizenship
Civil Rights Explore 116 books about civil rights
Equality Explore 58 books about equality