Court records provide invaluable evidence of the existence of laws and notional rights affecting women and how these were (or were not) enforced and exercised. Many documents provide tantalizing glimpses of female thinking and echoes of female voices, but these remain elusive because of the influence of the lawyers, scribes, and officials who helped shape and record them. This article examines the multiple difficulties that researchers face in distinguishing women's contributions from those of lawyers in legal records, and argues that the artificial nature of legal processes complicates conceptions of “authentic” female voices. It suggests ways to address methodological problems and concludes that focusing on multiple voices and processes of collaboration may bear more fruit than seeking to extract individual women's private thoughts and words.

中文翻译：

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妇女、法律记录和律师之手的问题

法庭记录提供了宝贵的证据，证明存在影响妇女的法律和名义权利，以及这些权利是如何（或没有）执行和行使的。许多文件提供了女性思想的诱人一瞥和女性声音的回声，但由于帮助塑造和记录它们的律师、抄写员和官员的影响，这些仍然难以捉摸。本文探讨了研究人员在区分法律记录中女性的贡献与律师的贡献时面临的多重困难，并认为法律程序的人为性质使“真实”女性声音的概念变得复杂。它提出了解决方法问题的方法，并得出结论认为，关注多种声音和协作过程可能比寻求提取个别女性的