Why marry? The personal question is timeless. Yet the highly emotional
desires of men and women during the period between 1450 and 1650 were
also circumscribed by external forces that operated within a complex
arena of sweeping economic, demographic, political, and religious
changes. The period witnessed dramatic religious reforms in the Catholic
confession and the introduction of multiple Protestant denominations;
the advent of the printing press; European encounters and exchange with
the Americas, North Africa, and southwestern and eastern Asia; the
growth of state bureaucracies; and a resurgence of ecclesiastical
authority in private life. These developments, together with social,
religious, and cultural attitudes, including the constructed norms of
masculinity, femininity, and sexuality, impinged upon the possibility of
marrying. The nine scholars in this volume aim to provide a
comprehensive picture of current research on the cultural history of
marriage for the years between 1450 and 1650 by identifying both the
ideal templates for nuptial unions in prescriptive writings and artistic
representation and actual practices in the spheres of courtship and
marriage rites, sexual relationships, the formation of family networks,
marital dissolution, and the overriding choices of individuals over the
structural and cultural constraints of the time.
A Cultural History of Marriage in the Renaissance and Early Modern Age
presents an overview of the period with essays on Courtship and Ritual;
Religion, State and Law; Kinship and Social Networks; the Family
Economy; Love and Sex; the Breaking of Vows; and Representations of
Marriage.
