ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between law, medical knowledge and romantic suffering in early twentieth-century Australia. Drawing upon a sample of breach of promise of marriage actions from 1824 to 1930, it argues that where the plaintiff’s pain was largely presumed in the nineteenth century, by the twentieth century mastering the language and performance of anguish became crucial to legal success. The less that women suffered socially from romantic disappointment, the more they sought to prove it in court. Women dressed the lesions of their hearts in the disinterested language of medicine and borrowed psychological categories of trauma from victims of war and railway injuries. Heartbreak was thus legitimized as a species of pain by a convergence of law, medicine and women’s audacity to take their feelings seriously. The court’s response to these new bodily articulations of suffering provides a counter-history to the usual tale of law’s preference for the tangible over the intangible. Somatic injury was relegated to special damages, determined by the evidence of doctors and with less lucrative compensation, while emotional injury occupied the dominant, more profitable category of general damages. The history of heartbreak thus demonstrates the historical contingency of legal hostility to emotional injury.

中文翻译：

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“她强烈地感受到自己的感情受到了伤害”：20 世纪初澳大利亚违背婚姻承诺和心碎的医学化

摘要 本文考察了 20 世纪早期澳大利亚的法律、医学知识和浪漫痛苦之间的关系。借鉴 1824 年至 1930 年间违反婚姻承诺诉讼的样本，它认为原告的痛苦在 19 世纪主要被假定，到了 20 世纪，掌握痛苦的语言和表现成为法律成功的关键。女性在社交上遭受的浪漫失望越少，她们就越想在法庭上证明这一点。妇女们用无私的医学语言来修饰她们的心脏损伤，并借用战争和铁路伤害受害者的心理创伤分类。因此，由于法律、医学和女性敢于认真对待自己的感受，心碎被合法化为一种痛苦。法院对这些新的身体痛苦表达的回应提供了一个反历史，与通常的法律偏爱有形而非无形的故事相反。身体伤害被降级为特殊损害赔偿，由医生的证据确定，赔偿金额较低，而​​精神损害则占主要的、利润更高的一般损害赔偿类别。因此，心碎的历史证明了法律对情感伤害的敌意的历史偶然性。更有利可图的一般损害赔偿类别。因此，心碎的历史证明了法律对情感伤害的敌意的历史偶然性。更有利可图的一般损害赔偿类别。因此，心碎的历史证明了法律对情感伤害的敌意的历史偶然性。