scholarly journals R v Hall and the changing perceptions of the crime of bigamy

Legal Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Rebecca Probert

AbstractIn 1845, the conviction of Thomas Hall for bigamy was reported as an example of the unequal way in which the law operated, with great play being made of the steps that Hall could have taken to free himself from his first wife by a divorce, were it not for the cost involved. Since then, virtually every account of nineteenth-century bigamy or divorce has included some version of the judge's apparently ‘brilliantly sarcastic’ speech.But what the judge was reported as saying at the time differs in a number of crucial particulars from what later commentators have reported him as saying. Later accounts have played up the misconduct of the first wife, inflated the cost of obtaining a divorce, and exaggerated the poverty and lowly status of Hall, while playing down the sentence he received and ignoring his deception of his second wife.This paper traces the evolution of the account over time, and identifies the timing of the various changes that were made. It illustrates how history is used – by politicians, reformers, and scholars – to support both a particular view of the past and to bolster claims as to how the law should change for the future.

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Gin Lum

AbstractThis article asks whether and how J. Z. Smith's contention that religion is a “non-native category” might be applied to the discipline of history. It looks at how nineteenth-century Americans constructed their own understandings of “proper history”—authenticatable, didactic, and progressive—against the supposed historylessness of “heathen” Hawaiians and stagnation of “pagan” Chinese. “True” history, for these nineteenth-century historians, changed in the past and pointed to change in the future. The article asks historians to think about how they might be replicating some of the same assumptions about forward-moving history by focusing on change over time as a core component of historical narration. It urges historians to instead also incorporate the native historical imaginations of our subjects into our own methods, paying attention to when those imaginations are cyclical and reiterative as well as directional, and letting our subjects' assumptions about time and history, often shaped by religious perspectives, orient our own decisions about how to structure the stories we tell.


2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Edward J. Schnee ◽  
Shane R. Stinson

ABSTRACT Congress created the tax-free exchange of like-kind property over 90 years ago and has since made several revisions to the law to prevent tax abuse and limit its application. However, the like-kind exchange rules, now governed by Section 1031, are expanding over time. In this article, we review the legislative history of Section 1031 and recently proposed changes to the law. In line with recent proposals, we recommend that Congress eliminate the special tax treatment granted to like-kind exchanges. However, in the event that Congress is unable or unwilling to make such a change, we also offer policy suggestions to limit current abuses of the like-kind provision relating to exchanges of investment property, the use of qualified intermediaries in non-simultaneous exchanges, and exchanges involving dual-use property.


Author(s):  
C. Michael Shea

For the past several decades, scholars have stressed that the genius of John Henry Newman remained underappreciated among his Roman Catholic contemporaries, and in order to find the true impact of his work, one must look to the century after his death. This book takes direct aim at that assumption. Examining a host of overlooked evidence from England and the European continent, Newman’s Early Legacy tracks letters, recorded conversations, and obscure and unpublished theological exchanges to show how Newman’s 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine influenced a cadre of Catholic teachers, writers, and Church authorities in nineteenth-century Rome. The book explores how these individuals then employed Newman’s theory of development to argue for the definability of the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary during the years preceding the doctrine’s promulgation in 1854. Through numerous twists and turns, the narrative traces how the theory of development became a factor in determining the very language that the Roman Catholic Church would use in referring to doctrinal change over time. In this way, Newman’s Early Legacy uncovers a key dimension of Newman’s significance in modern religious history.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 318-338
Author(s):  
Anthony Edwards

Abstract This article recovers a dissonant voice from the nineteenth-century nahḍa. Antonius Ameuney (1821–1881) was a fervent Protestant and staunch Anglophile. Unlike his Ottoman Syrian contemporaries, who argued for religious diversity and the formation of a civil society based on a shared Arab past, he believed that the only geopolitical Syria viable in the future was one grounded in Protestant virtues and English values. This article examines Ameuney’s complicated journey to become a Protestant Englishman and his inescapable characterization as a son of Syria. It charts his personal life and intellectual career and explores how he interpreted the religious, cultural, political, and linguistic landscape of his birthplace to British audiences. As an English-speaking Ottoman Syrian intellectual residing permanently in London, the case of Antonius Ameuney illustrates England to have been a constitutive site of the nahḍa and underscores the role played by the British public in shaping nahḍa discourses.


2008 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
SueAnne Ware

Andreas Huyssen writes, ‘Remembrance as a vital human activity shapes our links to the past, and the ways we remember define us in the present. As individuals and societies, we need the past to construct and to anchor our identities and to nurture a vision of the future.’ Memory is continually affected by a complex spectrum of states such as forgetting, denial, repression, trauma, recounting and reconsidering, stimulated by equally complex changes in context and changes over time. The apprehension and reflective comprehension of landscape is similarly beset by such complexities. Just as the nature and qualities of memory comprise inherently fading, shifting and fleeting impressions of things which are themselves ever-changing, an understanding of a landscape, as well as the landscape itself, is a constantly evolving, emerging response to both immense and intimate influences. There is an incongruity between the inherent changeability of both landscapes and memories, and the conventional, formal strategies of commemoration that typify the constructed landscape memorial. The design work presented in this paper brings together such explorations of memory and landscape by examining the ‘memorial’. This article examines two projects. One concerns the fate of illegal refugees travelling to Australia: The SIEVX Memorial Project. The other, An Anti-Memorial to Heroin Overdose Victims, was designed by the author as part of the 2001 Melbourne Festival.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-159
Author(s):  
Jan Adriaan Schlebusch

Abstract In his strategic political positioning and engagement in the nineteenth century, Groen van Prinsterer looked towards both the past and the future. Rhetorically, he appealed to the past as a vindication of the truth and practicality of his anti-revolutionary position. He also expressed optimism for the success of his convictions and political goals in the future. This optimism was reflected in the confidence with which he engaged politically, despite experiencing numerous setbacks in his career. Relying on the phenomenological-narrative approach of David Carr, I highlight the motives and strategies behind Groen’s political activity, and reveal that the past and the future in Groen’s narrative provide the strategic framework for his rhetoric, and the basis for his activism. I accentuate how the emphasis of his narrative shifts away from the status quo and thus enables a type of political engagement that proved historically significant for the early consolidation of the Dutch constitutional democracy.


Contract Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 245-258
Author(s):  
Ewan McKendrick

Requirements of form (such as writing) are not as important today as they were in the past. As a general rule, contracts can be made in any form and can be proved by any means, although there remain exceptional cases where the law does insist upon requirements of form. This chapter, which considers the reasons for continued reliance upon requirements of form, along with the criticisms levelled against such requirements, begins by explaining why legal systems impose formal requirements upon contracting parties. It then outlines the formal requirements in English contract law, followed by a discussion of the future of formal requirements, noting the distinction between cases where the contract must be made in writing and cases in which contracts must be evidenced in writing.


Author(s):  
Ewan McKendrick

Requirements of form (such as writing) are not as important today as they were in the past. As a general rule, contracts can be made in any form and can be proved by any means, although there remain exceptional cases where the law does insist upon requirements of form. This chapter, which considers the reasons for continued reliance upon requirements of form, along with the criticisms levelled against such requirements, begins by explaining why legal systems impose formal requirements upon contracting parties. It then outlines the formal requirements in English contract law, followed by a discussion of the future of formal requirements, noting the distinction between cases where the contract must be made in writing and cases in which contracts must be evidenced in writing.


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