Description: Agren chronicles changes in married women's property rights in Sweden between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, revealing the story of women's property as not just a simple narrative of the erosion of legal rights, but a more complex tale of unintended consequences. Agren's work enhances our understanding of how societies have conceived of women's contributions to the fundamental institutions of marriage and the family, using as an example a country with far-reaching influence during and after the Enlightenment.
Review Quotes: "Agren covers an immense time period with an adept eye for the illuminating case record, and she tells her local and particular stories well. This is an important book, a model for how the social histories of family law and inheritance should be written."--Hendrik Hartog, Princeton University