Introduction 1. ¿A Passage in Our History which We Could not Look back upon without Shame¿: The Roots of Discontent, c.1835-1848 2. Restraining the ¿Devil in Our Sisters¿: James Wortley¿s Marriage Affinity Bills, 1849-1851 3. The ¿Misery of Scotch Law¿: Legal Precedents, Political Discourses and Literary Representations, c.1851-1862 4. ¿Sleeping while the Enemy is Busy Sowing His Tares.¿ The Challenge to Scripture, c.

1851-1888 5. ¿The Man is Everything, and the Woman Nothing¿: Protecting, Purifying and Conceptualising the Family, 1862-1888 6. ¿It is Too Readily Assumed that all Those Who are Opposed to this Kind of Marriage are Idiots¿: Public Opinion, Party and Personal Conscience, 1869-1906 7. ¿It is Time this Controversy should End¿: Reform and Reaction, 1907 Conclusion: A Woman¿s Question, a Man¿s Need, a Class¿s Interest?.