Arguing that the role of Upper Canadian women in the overall economy of the early colonial period has been greatly undervalued by contemporary historians. Jane Errington illustrates how the work they did, particularly as wives and mothers, played a significant role in the development of the colony.

Errington explores evidence of a distinctive women's culture and shows that the work women did constituted a common experience shared by Upper Canadian women. Most of them not only experienced the uncertainties of marriage and the potential dangers of childbirth but also took part in making sure that the needs of their families were met. How women actually fulfilled their numerous responsibilities differed, however. Age, location, marital status, class, and society's changing expectations of women all had a direct impact on what was expected of them, what they did, and how they did it. Considering "women's work" within the social and historical context, Errington shows that the complexity of colonial society cannot be understood unless the roles and work of women in Upper Canada are taken into account.

What does the "tradition of marriage" really look like? In A History of Marriage, Elizabeth Abbott paints an often surprising picture of this most public, yet most intimate, institution. Ritual of romance, or social obligation? Eternal bliss, or cult of domesticity? Abbott reveals a complex tradition that includes same-sex unions, arranged marriages, dowries, self-marriages, and child brides. Marriage—in all its loving, unloving, decadent, and impoverished manifestations—is revealed here through Abbott's infectious curiosity.

In 1846, a group of women came together to form what would become one of nineteenth-century Hamilton’s most important social welfare institutions. Through the Ladies Benevolent Society and Hamilton Orphan Asylum, they managed and administered a charitable visiting society, orphan asylum, and aged women’s home. At this time, in other parts of the Western world, the public sphere and women’s exclusion from it were reshaping political and gender relations. Although charitable women in Hamilton managed essential social services in the community, and although these efforts were publicly financed, their work was still defined as “private.” In Private Women and the Public Good, Carmen J. Nielson explores the history of this pioneering charity and demonstrates that despite its notable political significance, women’s charitable work failed to challenge the staunch division of private and public spheres.

The Other Quebec explores some of the complex ways that religious institutions and beliefs affected the rural societies in which the majority of Canadians still lived in the nineteenth century.

This unique and timely collection brings together 24 of the very best and most controversial readings on the history of crime, deviance and criminal justice in Canada. Divided into five sections, the first part of Crime and Deviance examines developing issues in crime and punishment while the second part introduces key aspects of a 'working criminal justice system'. Policing ethnicity is the focus of section three, which includes articles on the relocation phenomenon and the Africville study as well as Ontario Aboriginal women confronting the criminal justice system, 1920-1960. Similarly, regulating gender and sexuality, section four, examines moral reform in English Canada, 1885-1925; and anti-homosexual campaigns in the Canadian Civil Service in the mid-20th century. The final section profiles the moral regulation of behaviour. Articles in this section include non-medical opiate use and control policies in Canada, 1870-1970; as well as moral fervour and the evolution of Canada's prostitution laws, 1867-1917. Power relations is a very strong unifying theme that is, relations of gender, social class, ethnicity and age. regulation of sexuality, we can trace these relations of power and how they link to the definition of crime in society. Canada's top criminologists and social critics are included in this special collection. This impressive list includes Russell Smandych, Rick Linden, Constance Backhouse, Helen Boritch, John Hagan, Carolyn Strange, Tina Loo, Joan Sangster, Mariana Valverde, Kelly Hannah-Moffat, Gary Kinsman and Robert Menzies.

Women and Work provides an analysis of the issue of workplace inequality. Among the topics discussed are women's participation in the workplace, the continuing disparity in wages, the impact of new technologies, free trade and economic restructuring, and the involvement of women in the labour movement. This revised edition amplifies the authors' findings that little has improved in women's working conditions and prospects.