Girls in Trouble: Sexuality and Social Control in Rural Scotland 1660 – 1780

“Unmarried pregnant women – and the men who caused their pregnancies – were targeted by Scottish church courts determined to maintain a godly society. Drawing on their records, Girls in Trouble looks at illegitimacy patterns in different regions of Scotland, at the attitudes of Church and State, and at the behaviour and expectations of the couples. Individual stories emerge of hardship and generosity, roughness and kindness, revealing a very rural world in which people nevertheless experienced the universal emotions of love, hate, tenderness and defiance.”–BOOK JACKET.