The Legal Context of Female Husbands in England

In this second chapter of Derry's book on legal aspects of lesbianism in England, the focus is on situations when "female husbands" (i.e., assinged-female persons living as men who married women or presented themselves as being married to women). In fact, a great deal of the pre-20th century focus of Derry's work is focused strongly on the specific topic of how the law (and the newspapers) dealt with "female husbands," while lesbianism that took other forms was not generally of interest to the law. More on this when I do my concluding discussion of the book.