Mixed Matches

Transgressive Unions in Germany from the Reformation to the Enlightenment

David M. Luebke, Mary Lindemann

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781785335242
• eBook ISBN: 9781782384106
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

The significant changes in early modern German marriage practices included many unions that violated some taboo. That taboo could be theological and involve the marriage of monks and nuns, or refer to social misalliances as when commoners and princes (or princesses) wed. Equally transgressive were unions that crossed religious boundaries, such as marriages between Catholics and Protestants, those that violated ethnic or racial barriers, and those that broke kin-related rules. Taking as a point of departure Martin Luther's redefinition of marriage, the contributors to this volume spin out the multiple ways that the Reformers' attempts to simplify and clarify marriage affected education, philosophy, literature, high politics, diplomacy, and law. Ranging from the Reformation, through the ages of confessionalization, to the Enlightenment, Mixed Matches addresses the historical complexity of the socio-cultural institution of marriage.

Table of contents

• Mixed Matches
• Contents
• Introduction — Transgressive Unions
• Chapter 1 — "It Is Not Forbidden that a Man Have More Than One Wife": Luther's Pastoral Advice on Bigamy and Marriage
• Chapter 2 — Celibacy—Marriage—Unmarriage: The Controversy over Celibacy and Clerical Marriage in the Early Reformation
• Chapter 3 — "Nothing More than Common Whores and Knaves": Married Nuns and Monks in the Early German Reformation
• Chapter 4 — Transgressive Unions and Concepts of Honor in Early Modern Defamation Lawsuits
• Chapter 5 — Negotiating Rank in Early Modern Marital Mismatches
• Chapter 6 — Between Conscience and Coercion: Mixed Marriages, Church, Secular Authority, and Family
• Chapter 7 — The Rhetoric of Difference: The Marriage Negotiations between Queen Christina of Sweden and Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg
• Chapter 8 — Mixed Matches and Inter-Confessional Dialogue: The Hanoverian Succession and the Protestant Dynasties of Europe in the Early Eighteenth Century
• Chapter 9 — Transethnic Unions in Early Modern German Travel Literature
• Chapter 10 — The Meaning of Love: Emotion and Kinship in Sixteenth-Century Incest Discourses
• Chapter 11 — Aufklärung, Literature, and Fatherly Love: An Eighteenth-Century Case of Incest
• Afterword — Shifting Boundaries and Boundary Shifters: Transgressive Unions and the History of Marriage in Early Modern Germany
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index