Domestic Reforms tells a complicated story of family and welfare law reform within the context of British Columbia’s transformation from a British colonial enclave to a white settler Canadian province. It inherited a British legal system that granted married men control over most family property and imposed few obligations on them toward their wives and children. Yet from the 1860s onward, lawmakers throughout the Anglo-American world, including legislators on the Pacific Coast, began to grant women and children new rights. Feminist scholars have long debated the reasons for these reforms. Why did male legislators choose to depart from patriarchal norms, enacting laws that eroded husbands’ control over property and increased their obligations? More important, what were the legal and social consequences?

Chris Clarkson examines three waves of property, inheritance, and maintenance law reform, arguing that each was related to a broader political vision intended to precipitate vast social and economic effects. He analyzes the impact of the legislation, with emphasis on the ambitions of regulated populations, the influence of the judiciary, and the social and fiscal concerns of generations of legislators and bureaucrats.