Dysfunctional domesticity: Female insanity and family relationships among the West Riding poor in the mid-nineteenth century

"Dysfunctional Domesticity" contributes to the growing reevaluation of the importance of the history of the family to understanding the history of ins anity. Using patient case histories from the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asy lum, this article Examines representations of family life among the poor in England in the 1830s and 1840s. Among the so-called moral causes of insani ty, family relationships held a prominent place. Female patients more than male patients had their mental illnesses attributed to their domestic circu mstances: the poverty of their home lives, grief over the death of friends and family, love and marital relationships gone wrong, and violence in thei r homes. The case histories reveal that poor women experienced many pressur es in the domestic sphere, and insanity may have been one way to escape dys functional domesticity.