LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Irish women and the creation of modern Catholicism, 1850–1950

Photo from wikipedia

tribution to the scholarship on objects and emotions by tackling a key question raised – but not necessarily answered – by existing studies; how might we examine the emotional meaning… Click to show full abstract

tribution to the scholarship on objects and emotions by tackling a key question raised – but not necessarily answered – by existing studies; how might we examine the emotional meaning of increasingly industrially produced goods, when it is handmade items which are interpreted as having the most ‘emotional power’ (p. 95)? Focusing on the growing popularity of printed valentine cards, for instance, Holloway shows how these standardised objects could be rendered unique through the addition of handwritten text, suggesting that we need to rethink any rigid distinctions between handmade and mass-produced. The chapter concludes that the emergence and use by courting couples of these new consumer goods played an important role in the ‘modernization and commercialization’ of romantic love (p. 116) but highlights that they built on – rather than eclipsed – existing customs. The final two chapters consider what happened when courtship went wrong, with Chapter Five tracing a shift in cultural codes of romantic suffering over the century as women were increasingly transformed into ‘objects of sympathy, whose misfortunes were caused by their tender and feeling hearts’ (p. 18). Chapter Six offers one of the first in-depth analyses of breach of promise in the civil courts over the eighteenth century, drawing on ninety of these cases to show how changes in the cultural script of love outlined in previous chapters impacted on these suits. Both chapters reiterate the central role of objects, as Five shows how the return of love letters and gifts marked the breakdown of a courtship, while Six offers discussion of the objects mobilised as evidence in these cases. Work by Catherine Richardson, for example, has already explored objects as evidence in breach of promise suits in the early modern church courts, and this could have been cited here to highlight that this was not unique to the eighteenth century. However, Holloway still makes an original contribution by demonstrating that, though courting couples had access to an ever-increasing range of consumer goods, it was only love letters, wedding licences, wedding clothes, and furniture which were regularly presented as evidence. This is an ambitious study, and at times discussion moves very quickly in order to address the wide range of source material. In particular, there are points at which the book could more explicitly outline how this cultural script of romantic love was circulated and disseminated across the social hierarchy. Nevertheless, overall this is an impressive book which offers new insights into how Georgian men and women negotiated the processes of courtship, and provides an exemplar of how to ‘do’ emotions history with objects.

Keywords: modern catholicism; irish women; catholicism 1850; women creation; 1850 1950; creation modern

Journal Title: Women's History Review
Year Published: 2019

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.