Handfasted

Handfasted is a novel by the Australian writer and social reformer Catherine Helen Spence. The novel is a work of feminist speculative fiction that depicts a lost utopian settlement named Columba founded by Scottish explorers in Central America. In Columba, a system of trial marriages called "handfasting" has contributed to the development of a utopian society where women are more equal to men. The narrative centres on the romance between a Scottish-Australian man named Hugh Keith and a Columban woman named Liliard Abercrombie.

Spence completed Handfasted in 1879 and submitted the manuscript to a literary competition, but it was rejected by the judges due to what they viewed as its radical and subversive themes. After remaining unpublished for over a century, the novel was ultimately released by Penguin Books in 1984. Analysis of the novel has discussed its depictions of marriage, social reform, and the politics of the settler colony.