"I will not maintain you": Understanding Economic Abuse in South Australia, 1859-1893

Abstract

Twenty-first century understandings of economic abuse have evolved significantly, both in terms of its prevalence within the majority of domestic abuse cases and as a form of violence in and of itself. Economic abuse is an integral component of domestic abuse as it is often key to the establishment of coercive control that prevents the victim from leaving an abusive relationship. Understanding the historical context of economic abuse is key to determining how to address the current crisis. An increasing number of studies are concerned with the history of domestic abuse in the wider Australian context, but there has been little consideration of the history of violence towards women in colonial South Australia. Moreover, while wife desertion in colonial South Australia has recently received more attention, there remains a large gap in the literature as to how desertion functioned alongside other variations of economic abuse. This thesis considers the different kinds of economic abuse and corresponding physical abuse that many married women endured, and it examines how they were able to survive this abuse through legal recourse, employment, and relying on a network of family and friends. I argue that desertion and failure to support within a relationship both signified a husband’s refusal to maintain his wife financially. Consequently, to better understand a woman’s experience of abuse, it is crucial to study desertion alongside the failure to support within a relationship, as desertion was usually only one ‘event’ within a troubled marriage. I draw on matrimonial petitions that were submitted to the Supreme Court between 1859 and 1893 and newspaper reports of court cases, which signify the first occasions of women seeking legal recourse in the form of divorce, separation and protection orders against abusive husbands in the state. The case studies reveal how, despite enduring continuous abuse and desertion in their domestic lives, the women exercised agency through the legal system and by, in many cases, gaining some degree of self-sufficiency through employment. Ultimately, these fleeting moments of agency should not be overstated, as my thesis demonstrates over and over again that the consequences of continuous abuse, neglect and periods of desertion were devastating for these women and their families.