Abstract
This article examines the patriarchal nature of inheritance law in late medieval and early modern England, the existence of an aristocratic offensive in the field of law against women’s inheritance rights between the 14th and the 18th century, and the relation between this offensive and the rise of agrarian capitalism. It then investigates the favorable effects of this legal legacy on the accumulation and concentration of the means of agrarian, coal and industrial commodity production in the hands of a minority of male aristocrats and bourgeois who played a significant role in the making of the Industrial Revolution.
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© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Law, Commodification, and the Distribution of Resources
- Patriarcapitalism? Towards an Intertwined History of Inheritance law and Capitalism from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution (c. 1350–1850)
- Capitalising on Uncertainty: Exploring the Failure of International Law to Address the Risk Generated by the Proliferation of Space Debris
- Data as a Contested Commodity
- The New Law of the European Data Markets: Demystifying the European Data Strategy
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Law, Commodification, and the Distribution of Resources
- Patriarcapitalism? Towards an Intertwined History of Inheritance law and Capitalism from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution (c. 1350–1850)
- Capitalising on Uncertainty: Exploring the Failure of International Law to Address the Risk Generated by the Proliferation of Space Debris
- Data as a Contested Commodity
- The New Law of the European Data Markets: Demystifying the European Data Strategy