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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.
“This rich volume will be useful to scholars researching and teaching a range of topics, from German history and the history of sexuality, to religious and legal studies.” • Central European History
“This volume is exemplary regarding structure, coherence, and originality.” • Werkstatt Geschichte
“A seminal anthology of original work and research, Mixed Matches is a valued and highly recommended addition to personal and academic library Germany History & Culture reference collections and supplemental studies reading lists.” • Midwest Book Review
“The essays in this groundbreaking volume explore discourses and practices surrounding a wide variety of transgressive unions in early modern Germany, including those that challenged boundaries of confession, rank, race, honor, sexual morality (e.g., the incest ‘taboo’), and, in the case of bigamy, the institution of marriage itself. Taken together, they provide fascinating new insight into the shifting understandings of marriage and sexual union in the years 1500-1800 while highlighting the public dimensions of private intimacy throughout this era.” • George Williamson, Florida State University
“This collection of essays implicitly addresses the adage that ‘every rule is made to be broken.’ Each author takes up a category of departure—shall I say deviance?—from the norms governing moral behavior in early modern Germany, an age allegedly rigidly devoted to order and discipline. The topics run from bigamy through ex-nuns’ marriage, marital class and racial differences, spousal adherence to opposing faiths, and incest. These studies all embody significant primary research and are of uniformly high quality. Collectively they illuminate not only specific acts of nonconformity but the standards themselves.” • Susan C. Karant-Nunn, University of Arizona
David M. Luebke is Professor of History at the University of Oregon. He is author most recently of Hometown Religion: Regimes of Coexistence in Early Modern Westphalia (2016). He is also editor of The Counter-Reformation (1999) and co-editor of Conversion and the Politics of Religion in Early Modern Germany (2012) and Archeologies of Confession: Writing the German Reformation, 1517-2017 (2017).
Introduction: Transgressive Unions
David M. Luebke
Chapter 1. ‘It is not forbidden that a man may have more than one wife’: Luther’s Pastoral Advice on Bigamy and Marriage
David Whitford
Chapter 2. Celibacy—Marriage—Un-Marriage: The Controversy over Celibacy and the Marriage of Priests in the Early Reformation
Wolfang Breul
Chapter 3. ‘Nothing More than Common Whores and Knaves’: Married Nums and Monks in the Early German Reformation
Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer
Chapter 4. Transgressive Unions and Concepts of Honor in Early Modern Defamation Lawsuits
Ralf-Peter Fuchs
Chapter 5. Negotiating Rank in Early Modern Marital Mismatches
Michael Sikora
Chapter 6. Between Conscience and Coercion: Confessionally Mixed Marriages Between Church, State, and Family
Dagmar Freist
Chapter 7. The Rhetoric of Difference: The Marriage Negotiations Between Queen Christina of Sweden and Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg
Daniel Riches
Chapter 8. Mixed Matches and Inter-Confessional Dialogue: The Hannoverian Succession and the Protestant Dynasties of Europe in the Early Eighteenth Century
Alexander Schunka
Chapter 9. Trans-Ethnic Unions in Early Modern German Travel Literature
Antje Flüchter
Chapter 10. The Meaning of Love: Emotion and Kinship in Early Modern Incest Discourses
Claudia Jarzebowski
Chapter 11. Aufklärung, Literature, and Fatherly Love: An Eighteenth-Century Case of Incest
Mary Lindemann
Afterword: Shifting Boundaries and Boundary Shifters: Transgressive Unions and the History of Marriage in Early Modern Germany
Joel F. Harrington
Bibliography
Contributors
Index