Quiet Revolutionaries: The Married Women’s Association

The Married Women’s Association (MWA) is remarkable as the first pressure group of the twentieth century to campaign for legal and economic equality of married women as its core focus, because this had important repercussions for married women's property rights. In this talk, I will explore the story of the MWA's campaigns, lessons for reform strategies today and how the group’s influence, while subtle, was nevertheless a vital part of how family law came to be as we know it now. Further information about the book and podcast associated with this talk can be found at https://marriedwomensassociation.co.uk/.

Dr Sharon Thompson is Reader in the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University. Her research specialises in adult relationships, with particular focus on power, inequality and the gender of money. To date, she has published two monographs: Prenuptial Agreements and the Presumption of Free Choice (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Quiet Revolutionaries: The Married Women’s Association and Family Law (Bloomsbury, 2022).