Description
FIRST EDITION, 8vo, pp. xii, 181, [1]. Original green cloth, lettered in gilt to front board and spine, boards bordered in blind. Binding a little rubbed and marked. Ink ownership inscription to front pastedown.
Mating, Marriage, and the Status of Woman.
- London: The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd. 1910
£200
Notes
The scarce first edition of an intriguing exploration of the institution of marriage and its impact on women. The ODNB credits Sydney Savory Buckman (1860-1929) with this work, which aligns with his and his wife Maude's involvement in social reform and the early feminist movement. He references and quotes extensively from early feminist writers such as Mona Caird and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Buckman was a geologist by training and occupation, and so perhaps he used the pseudonym 'James Corin' to separate this anthropological work from his scientific publications.
The text cites marriage as 'an exploitation' of women, likening it to slavery, and the book concludes with a prediction that society in its current state will forever oscillate between men having strict control over women through marriage and brief periods of limited liberation.
