The marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert set the template for how we imagine a wedding should be but it wasn’t always about big white frocks. Philippa Gregory explores how married women became the property of their husbands - along with everything they owned and produced. She considers the hidden history of wife sales and female husbands and shines a light on the difficulty women had accessing divorce. Joining Philippa to consider the institutions of marriage, divorce and single life through time are: Laura Bates, writer, activist and founder of the Everyday Sexism projectRachael Lennon, writer, social history curator and author of Wedded Wife: A Feminist History of Marriage Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History is Philippa Gregory's radical retelling of our nation’s story – not of the rise and fall of kings and the occasional queen, but a history of the millions of women missing from the record: wives and workers, viragoes and angels, female husbands, priests and pirates. Music: When Adam Was First Created - performed by Andy Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.