In Chapter 7, the objectification of humanity, resulting in the cataloging of humans through the means of science and technology, is addressed through the example of US sex offender registries and other criminal databanks. Human cataloging offers government a means to control society in the name of public order, but law reform offers feasible methods of resisting the encroachment on rights of privacy and liberty.

The perambulatory boundary clause form entered the English imaginary as a tool of colonization, when the West Saxons began writing charters that claimed British land using the textual forms of the Celtic British people. This relationally oriented landscape description—“from Ida’s creek to the long ridge, and from the long ridge to the wolf pit”—became standard in early medieval English land charters. The landmarks are not in themselves unique, but together, when “walked” by the reader or literally perambulated, combine to produce a unique spatial and legal entity. They were also in flux; over time, landmarks like “Ida’s creek” would have shifted and changed, requiring local, lived experience to navigate the physical, social, and chronological features of the described landscape. As a result, a form designed to stabilize legal boundaries also became a textual and epistemological model for navigating unstable relational identity in the centuries of English literature that followed. Understanding the development of this form in the Old English boundary clauses allows us to see how and why it is operating in Old English literature.

Turning from the pulpit to the courtroom, Chapter 4 demonstrates the centrality of frenzy to what would later come to be termed the ‘insanity defence’. The English common law had its own framework for classifying mental illness, one which ran parallel to the medical nosologies explored in Chapter 1. This chapter explores the different categories of ‘madness’ recognizsed by early modern common lawyers – partial versus total, continual versus intermittent – and shows where frenzy fitted within this framework. It then turns to look at how these theories were mobilized in a specific legal context: coroners’ inquests into unexplained drownings. Where suicide was suspected, it argues, a story about frenzy – told right – offered an escape route for suspects and their families. Crucial, here, was the issue of culpability: frantic persons could not be held accountable for what they did while their wits were impaired. Without the capacity for consent, crime was impossible.

The introduction provides an overview of the analysis of the dialogue.

Chapter 4 draws on both existing research and semi-structured interviews with people with visible differences to explain what we know about the human experience – both psychological and social – of having a disfigurement. For instance, are particular types of disfigurement more vulnerable to discrimination than others? Are certain life contexts impacted more acutely? Are coping mechanisms commonly used? It considers the link between physical appearance and perceived personality traits. And it challenges common assumptions – like the idea that more severe disfigurements are always worse to live with (an erroneous assumption which lives on undaunted in the law). Despite methodological difficulties in researching such a dynamic and underexplored area, this chapter identifies significant disadvantages in looking different. With this in mind, this chapter probes how people with lived experience of visible difference understand their experiences and relate them to the law. Exploring the legal consciousness of this group of people provides a partial insight into the low numbers of claims brought under the relevant part of equality law. It interrogates the gulf between what the law says on paper and how it works in real life, revealing tensions and mixed messages which undermine law’s potential for effectiveness.

Between the no-fault divorce revolution and various court rulings classifying sexual behavior between two adults as a private, intimate matter, some scholars have noted a shift away from traditional morality around sex in conjugal, cohabiting, and dating relationships in family law. The act of sex in a romantic relationship is often perceived as one’s complete liberty without bounds. Many underrate the legal consequences attached to their sexual behavior. However, sex is still the defining consideration that creates legal recognition of a romantic relationship between two people. It creates legal duties to each other and any minor involved in the partnership, irrespective of biological ties, in a relational parentage era. Past and recent court rulings, including rulings from nonmarital, intimate partner violence, and parentage cases, are provided as examples to recount the legal meaning of the act of sex.

This chapter demonstrates how Ibadis, whether merchants or scholars, participated in the everyday legal life of Ottoman Cairo by using its shariah courts. It does so by focusing on two Ibadis living in seventeenth-century Cairo: a merchant named ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Baḥḥār and a scholar named Muḥammad Abī Sitta. The variety of ways in which both men used the court system demonstrates its importance to Ibadi merchants and scholars in the Ottoman period. The chapter’s overarching theme is how Ibadis used the legal tools of Ottoman Cairo, waqf property, and inheritance courts to navigate their everyday lives.

Chapter 3 considers the making into ‘migrants’ of those who moved and asks what it meant for their kinship relations. It looks at processes of migrant-making through encounters at three different scales: nationally (with the British state), locally (with their neighbours, strangers, and other Christians), and transnationally (with their kin), arguing that migration compressed these two historical generations into one ‘migrant’ generation. At the same time, I show how migrants participated in these processes, particularly vis-à-vis their kin and, in doing so, fuelled the latter’s expectations of economic and other support. Central to the discussion are the ways in which the imaginings of migrant and non-migrant kin diverged post-migration, creating friction transnationally. Christianity also features prominently in this chapter, as migrants sought to make sense of their dashed expectations, while seeking means to pursue their aspirations and cultivate a sense of belonging.

Family building is seldom a straight-line march to the finish, even for those fortunate individuals who avoid a detour into the ethical and legal minefield of assisted reproductive technology (ART). Importantly, intended parents and their third-party helpers often lack fundamental information about the parties’ status to any child created – who is a parent, what rights the respective parties possess, and how those rights are protected. Unless appropriately addressed, these issues may contribute to misunderstandings, misperceptions, and confusion, all of which may be laid at the feet of the fertility counselor. In order to practice preemptive crisis management, fertility counselors must recognize risky situations, analyze them with a critical eye, practice within the parameters of competence, ethics, and legal sound stricture, and apply best practice principles. Collaboration with qualified legal practitioners who understand third-party reproduction law is essential to that end.

Britten and Pears regarded their relationship as a ‘marriage’ and described it as such as early as 1943. Although comfortable with using this term privately, they were aware of the legal prohibition and social stigma that prevented them from proclaiming their partnership openly. And yet throughout their nearly forty years together they made no immediate secret among their circle of friends and relatives about living their lives as a couple. As this essay suggests, theirs was a special case, in that they lived their relationship with relative openness among those who knew them. Works such as the Michelangelo Sonnets and Canticle I were a declaration of sorts about the nature of their relationship, although it was not until after the composer’s death that Pears commented overtly in an interview about their love for one another. A decade after the decriminalisation of homosexual acts in the UK, and with social discussion on homosexuality widening, Pears believed that his and Britten’s marriage need no longer be regarded as a secret.