Sexual Liberation and Religion in Nineteenth Century Europe

J. Michael Phayer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138084605
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351184090
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This study, originally published in 1977, demonstrates that a change in mentality in the nineteenth-century drifted from traditional sexual controls and allowed them greater sexual freedom and indulgence. The process occurred in such a way that the proletariat never considered whether their newly found sexual liberation might be in conflict with the moral teachings of the Church. This title will be of interest to students of history and religion.

1 THE SECULARISATION OF SEX

Abrupt changes in sexual attitudes and behaviour surged through Central Europe around 1800. Since this vastly altered the pattern of daily life and powerfully contributed to the formation of the modern character, we will want to study the consequences of the new outlook. But, initially, a more intriguing and compelling question faces us: why did the change occur? While it is a mistake to imagine that a set formula can be found to explain sexual change for all people everywhere, in Central Europe certain external conditions brought about a sudden secularisation of sex among the proletariat.

The notion of a sexual revolution taking place in modern Western society is a fascinating one. It rests, partly, on startling bastardy statistics that show sharp increases in illegitimacy after 1750.¹ But statistics do not tell all. Those who have doubted that any such thing as a sexual revolution ever took place demand to know how it came to happen. If there was a sexual revolution, would not a new attitude towards sex have had to trigger it? Frankly, it must be admitted that explaining attitudinal changes has proven much more elusive than gathering data for statistical support of the idea of dramatic sexual transformation. If celibates, who cannot write, abruptly decide to have sex, how are we going to find out what changed their minds?

This question embraces several problems. For one thing, historical evidence must be largely circumstantial because, again, of our subjects’ illiteracy. Secondly, one is handicapped by the lack of historical studies on pre-modern Central European society that tackle this question.² But, more than anything else, we are hampered by an inability to break out of our own mind-sets so as to gain the freedom to think about sexuality in a context far different from that surrounding our own experiences. We customarily think of sex as the domain of the individual. Within certain limits, which are constantly being tested, we regard sex as an inviolably personal matter. As a result, when asked to explain attitudes towards sex different from our own, we throw up our hands, or rack our brains in search of likely and compelling causes of a change in sexual behaviour, and produce a list tailored to suit the individual sexuality of the contemporary world: capitalism, education, social class, ‘the wish to be free’, and so on.³ Is this good history? What allows us to assume that factors controlling our sexuality are historical constants? Infact, the modern attitude towards sex would have boggled the minds of our Baroque ancestors, for whom sexual response answered to more than personal whim. It fell under the purview of the family, the community, and what might be called the cosmic view. If we look at the world through their glasses, rather than our own, we will better understand how people finally came to entertain thoughts of explicit sexuality.

First of all, the family. In traditional German society parental discipline, which was normally stern and at times brutal, probably acted as a restraint to sexual indulgence.⁴ The inheritor’s inclination to marry and satisfy the sexual drive was a threat to the patriarch that had to be contained. One method of doing this was to frighten children with the spectre of ghosts and evil spirits. We may never find out how commonly this happened, but we must not confuse the open, carefree sexuality of the aristocracy, whose domestic servants fondled the genitals of blue-blooded little children, with the situation of the peasants.⁵ It is certain that the sexual mentality of the aristocracy—Tridentine in standard but hedonist in practice—could not and did not find place among their common subjects.⁶ And it is a safe assumption that they did not encourage the sexual appetites of their children and heirs.⁷

As a person matured, his or her sexual drives mired down in the family’s economic designs. Through the marriage contract the family often sacrificed their nubile members in profitable deals. Not the heart but the purse determined who had intercourse with whom in pre-modern Central Europe. To say that people ‘made love’ is to speak euphemistically: married couples who could hardly tolerate each other produced a numerous progeny.⁸

But it is not true to say that personal sensitivities were completely bypassed. The Bavarian custom known as the Heimgarten provided for this. It worked somewhat as follows. A courter, accompanied perhaps by a ‘marriage maker’, paid a visit to the home of the prospective bride. She had become a ‘prospect’ because of her dowry, which either the marriage maker, a mutual friend, or the young man’s father himself fancied to be worthwhile. Since the purpose of the visit was still a kind of ‘open secret’, the family voiced all manner of objections when asked to give the young couple some privacy by clearing out of the room. Once alone, the suitor began to speak of domestic concerns and matters of the heart. He might even go so far as to propose, or at least broach the topic of marriage in some way. This little tête-à-tête was called a Heimgarten. Soon—‘after about thirty minutes—the ‘marriage maker’, and the parents returned to see if they had taken to one another or not’.⁹ If the couple announced their engagement, or, more likely, somehow signalled positively, a day zum Sehen was set aside to have a look around, for business matters now had to be worked out. The family of whichever party was to move away from home visited the homestead of the other, making an exhaustive inspection of fields, livestock, farm buildings and the home itself. If a great deal was amiss or too much in poor repair, or if there was too large a debt outstanding, ‘negotiations’ simply broke off. Thus, although personal dispositions were assigned a role, traditional society did not allow them to determine the marital contract. Real estate considerations weighed in more heavily. The marriage bond would be held together by more than sacramental grace.

Elsewhere in Central Europe the affective element in arranged marriages counted for even less, if this can be imagined. In Westphalia something similar to the Heimgarten took place. On a specified day the prospective bridegroom called on the homestead of his would-be fiancée. Although the purpose of his visit was perfectly obvious, no one at first mentioned it or even alluded to it. Communication took place by custom. As an excuse for his visit, the caller was always to ask for a light for his pipe—a rather limp excuse, one would think. At any rate the woman of the house—not the one whose hand was being sought, who was evidently also present in the room—offered him a chair, and poked about in the stove for an ember for his tobacco while making small talk about the weather and this and that. In the meantime, she took a pan and placed it on the stove, the signal for him that the moment of truth had come. If she then proceeded to prepare some kind of dough for Pfannenkuchen, he was to immediately pull out his watch and assert that he would not be able to stay any longer. If, on the other hand, she began to prepare bacon and eggs, he was to proceed with the proposal, assured in advance of its acceptance. The young man and woman then made the promises of faithfulness to one another, which constituted an official engagement. It is obvious that in these rather awkward negotiations the prospective bride is being given the opportunity to ‘speak’ for herself and to determine whether she wants to become engaged, although it is not clear just how she does this. Has she already made up her mind, having at least met the person in question at some church social function, or must she reach a decision during the few minutes that pass while the fumbling with the pipe and coals transpires, and then somehow signal her inclination to her mother? We are left hoping it was not the latter, but not knowing for certain. What the entire affair—the family-arranged marriages and engagement ordeals—do point out to us is that sex was impersonal. Even the choice of a sex partner was taken out of the individual’s hands.¹⁰

Thus, familial economic considerations overruled affective relationships, or would have had there been any, for it is not clear that romance figured in the lives of farmers’ children. We would like to think that Heimgarten cases were exceptions, confined only to parts of Germany, but unfortunately, this was not the case; nor was the custom infrequent in France.¹¹ In fact, more extreme examples pointing to the same disregard of personal inclination can be cited. During the Napoleonic era, prospective brides in the Rhineland, upon being asked by French bureaucrats to give the names of the bridegrooms with whom they would soon (a week) be married, were unable to supply them!¹² It was not at all unusual for the prospective bride and bridegroom to have seen each other on only a few occasions before engagement.

At other times they knew only too well for whom they were intended. The ambitious Saipalt family of the Burgenland in Austria married one of its daughters to a farmer who was 21 years older than her, and a second daughter to a childless farmer, who at age 67 and 37 years older than her, was not likely to produce any heirs.¹³ Call it what one will, human exploitation or family solidarity, the marital aspirations of these girls ran aground on the family’s rocky determination to be distinguished members of the tiny Schlahing settlement in Upper Austria. In nearby Antau 12 per cent of the married women had husbands who were at least 15 years older than them, and 6 per cent of them were 20 or more years junior to their mates. In this respect little Antau was typical of Europe.¹⁴

If a girl survived being bespoke through a family arrangement, she still had to be careful not to transgress the restraints imposed by her community. In general, this meant postponing marriage a number of years, no sleeping around in the meantime, and in most parts of Catholic Germany and, possibly, some parts of France, it meant not conceiving a child before wedlock (pre-nuptial pregnancy). The community’s concern about bastardy was rooted in its anxiety over the food supply for the existing population. About once every decade during Baroque times Europe was hit by a famine.¹⁵ Bad weather terminating in poor crop yields caused scarcity. Sickness and disease followed in the footsteps of undernourishment and put an end to the misery of many. While it is true that a few reaped great profits by exporting grains during times of want¹⁶ nature herself was perceived by common people everywhere as the primary culprit. The last of these killer famines occurred in the early 1770s. Central Germany was one of the hardest hit areas. The yearly average of bread prices in Munich more than trebled during the crisis years. A glance at Table 1 shows the effect of the famine on the rural population of Gars, a large area situated between Munich and Salzburg. Most of those who died in 1771-2 probably succumbed to some illness resulting from malnutrition. But, as Peter Laslett wrote, this is splitting hairs; in common parlance we would say they starved. Many of them were infants, but most, 2,120 out of 3,359, w...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• 1 The Secularisation of Sex
• 2 Proletarian Sexuality
• 3 Proletarian Families
• 4 Popular Culture: Religion
• 5 Popular Culture: Dancing
• 6 Piety and Permissiveness in France
• 7 Popular Religion at a Crossroad
• 8 Conclusion: Religion and Change
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index