Compromise and Change: Reconsideration on the Custody of Infants Act of 1839

The United Kingdom's Custody of Infants Act of 1839 is generally regarded as a signature instrument for women to gain guardianship of a child, and widely considered a product of the equal rights movement launched by women in England. It has played an important role in promoting women's equal rights and breaking patri-archal absolutism. However, there was much compromise in the legal basis for the legislation and the legal provisions, resulting in debates on the legislation that have greatly diluted the revolutionary signif-icance of the Act. Starting with the Marxist argument on bourgeois family legislation, this paper analyzes the legislative and judicial practice of guardianship of minors before and after the promulgation of the Act in the United Kingdom. In view of its impact on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, this paper attempts to re-evaluate the historical status of this act.