Regent Law in Oxford studying Marriage Law & Economics

This summer Regent Law, Government, and Undergraduate students are studying in Oxford, England in a course entitled "Economics, Law & Literature of Marriage: UK & US 1720-2020." Marriage economics is a hot topic as the law of marriage faces dramatic change.

Jane Austen understood well the marriage financial connection: "Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor – which is one very strong argument in favor of Matrimony..." Nineteenth century novelist Jane Austen, a single woman all her life in a socio-legal culture that afforded women no legal or economic rights, understood the consequences of a lack of income and wealth, and wrote about it from a perspective that entertained millions while teaching readers about old English laws of primogeniture and the consequences to single women. How fitting that she's the newest woman on the British 10 pound bank note. Read how "Baby Mama Drama Meets Jane Austen" >.

While never a mother, Austen's insight and advice on money, finances, and families are salient today in a prospective analysis of broken or never-formed families, commonly described as family fragmentation, popularized as Baby Mama Drama.

The course will cover material on marriage law and economics from an historic and legal perspective of dramatic effect and change, from the old English laws of couverture and primogeniture to modern dilemmas of child marriage, marriage by consent, family fragmentation, and gendercide.  Family fragmentation, a very timely aspect of this topic, has significant societal effects as never-formed families are generally characterized by non-marital childbearing, and impoverished single mothers with young children. Add the drop in marriage rates in the United States, and unmarried child bearing is the essence of a never-formed family, contributing to a very noticeable gap in marriage and income inequality.  Indeed... money affects families and their restoration. "These matters are always a secret, till it is found that everybody knows them." Jane Austen, via Mr. Weston, in Emma. This course presents an exciting learning experience in every way for Regent students.