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Companions Without Vows is the first detailed study of the companionate relationship among women in eighteenth-century England--a type of relationship so prevalent that it was nearly institutionalized. Drawing extensively upon primary documents and fictional narratives, Betty Rizzo describes the socioeconomic conditions that forced women to take on or to become companions and examines a number of actual companionate relationships. Several factors fostered such relationships. Husbands and wives of the period lived largely separate social lives, yet decorum prohibited genteel women from attending engagements unaccompanied. Also, women of position insisted on having social consultants and confidantes. Filling this need were the many well-born young women without sufficient funds to live independently. Because family money and property were concentrated in the hands of eldest sons, these women frequently had to seek the protection of female benefactors for whom they performed unpaid, nonmenial tasks, such as providing a hand at cards or simply offering pleasant company. The companionate relationship between women could assume many forms, Rizzo notes. It was often analogous to marriage, with one partner dominant and the other subservient, while some women experimented in establishing partnerships that were truly egalitarian. Rizzo explores these various types of relationships both in real life and in fiction, noting that much of the period's discourse about women's relationships can be seen as a tacit commentary on marriage. Provocative and engagingly written, this authoritative work casts new light on women's attempts to deal with a patriarchal power structure and offers new insight into eighteenth-century social history.

Mills & Boon presents the complete Betty Neels collection. Timeless tales of heart-warming romance by one of the world’s best-loved romance authors.

Tabitha In The Moonlight Sister Tabitha was an efficient nurse, but when it came to matters of the heart she was less sure of herself. So when she fell in love, she had no idea how to deal with her feelings. Was that why the Dutch surgeon Marius van Beek called her Cinderella? If only Marius would ride up on a white horse and ask for her hand in marriage. But people lived happily ever after only in fairy tales, didn’t they? Henrietta’s Own Castle When Henrietta was left a house in a Dutch village, she decided to make her home there, and settled happily into her new abode. She thought she would like everything about Holland – except Marnix van Hessel. As ‘lord of the manor,’ he behaved as if it were still the Middle Ages! Why couldn’t he just marry his fiancée and leave Henrietta in peace? Discovering Daisy Daisy Gillard leads a quiet life working in her father’s antiques shop, until the handsome paediatrician Mr Jules der Huizma sweeps her away to Holland! It is a secret joy for Daisy that Jules seems to want to spend time with her. But Daisy knows her feelings can’t lead anywhere, since Jules is promised to another woman. Still, he is so attentive and charming that Daisy is starting to hope she could become Jules’s bride.

Professor Gideon Beaufort tried Deborah's good nature severely. He scorned her future as a trained nanny destined to spend her life caring for other people's children. Yet was his proposal any more enticing? All he wanted was a substitute nanny for his young daughter and nothing more. Deborah found herself wishing the sultry skies of Portugal's exotic Algarve weren't wasted on such a cynical widower and a dedicated nanny with stars in her eyes.

Interviews with Chinua Achebe, Isaac Asimov, Mary Catherine Bateson, Robert Bellah, Peter Berger, Sissela Bok, T. Berry Brazelton, James MacGregor Burns, Noam Chomsky, F. Forrester Church, Henry Steele Commager, E.L. Doctorow, Peter F. Drucker, Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris, Northrop Frye, Carlos Fuentes, Willard Gaylin, Mary Ann Glendon, Vartan Gregorian, Joseph Heller, Michael Josephson, Leon R. Kass, Sara Lightfoot, John Lukacs, Forrest McDonald, Arturo Madrid, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Martha Nussbaum, Elaine Pagels, David Puttnam, John Searle, Maxine Singer, Barbara Tuchman, Derek Walcott, Steven Weinberg, August Wilson, William Julius Wilson, Tom Wolfe, Sheldon Wolin, Anne Wortham, C.N. Yang.