Domestic Tyranny: The Making of American Social Policy against Family Violence from Colonial Times to the Present / Edition 1

by Elizabeth Pleck

Overview

Elizabeth Pleck's Domestic Tyranny chronicles the rise and demise of legal, political, and medical campaigns against domestic violence from colonial times to the present. Based on in-depth research into court records, newspaper accounts, and autobiographies, this book argues that the single most consistent barrier to reform against domestic violence has been the Family Ideal—that is, ideas about family privacy, conjugal and parental rights, and family stability. This edition features a new introduction surveying the multinational and cultural themes now present in recent historical writing about family violence.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252071751
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	02/24/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Pleck is a professor of history, human and community development at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her two most recent books are Celebrating the Family: Ritual, Consumer Culture, and Ethnicity and (coauthored with Cele Otnes) Cinderella Dreams: The Allure of the Lavish Wedding.    

 

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
	Introduction to the Illinois Edition	ix
	Introduction	3
I	Reform of the Moral Code
1.	Wicked Carriage	17
2.	Parental Tyranny	34
3.	The Drunkard's Wife	49
II	Reform of the Criminal Law
4.	Protecting the Innocents	69
5.	The Pure Woman and the Brutish Man	88
6.	Bringing Back the Whipping Post	108
III	Reform, the Psyche, and the State
7.	The Socialized Courts	125
8.	Psychiatry Takes Control	145
9.	The Pediatric Awakening	164
10.	Assault at Home	182
11.	Epilogue	201
Appendix A	Patterns of Childhood Punishment	205
Appendix B	Changes in the Incidence of Family Murder	217
	Notes	227
	Index	267