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Loading... Married Life in the Middle Ages, 900-1300 (edition 2019)by Elisabeth van Houts (Author)
Work InformationMarried Life in the Middle Ages, 900-1300 (Oxford Studies in Medieval European History) by Elisabeth van Houts
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Elisabeth van Houts here explores the realities of married live in western Europe during the Central Middle Ages, seeking to understand lived experiences rather than the ideals prescribed by theological and legal texts. The book is divided into three parts: an exploration on the decisions people made before getting married; what it was like to be married; and a look at long-term extra-marital relationships, polygamy, and single people. I found van Houts' argument that women's insistence was key in helping to enshrine consent rather than parental decision making as the key principle in marriage over the course of the Middle Ages, and her recovery of something of the emotional experience of medieval marriage to be quite impressive. Very much recommended for anyone with an interest in medieval social history or the history of marriage. ( ) no reviews | add a review
Married Life in the Middle Ages, 900-1300 contains an analysis of the experience of married life by men and women in Christian medieval Europe, c. 900-1300. The study focusses on the social and emotional life of the married couple rather than on the institutional history of marriage, breakingit into three parts: Getting Married - the process of getting married and wedding celebrations; Married Life - the married life of lay couples and clergy, their sexuality, and any remarriage; and Alternative Living - which explores concubinage and polygyny, as well as the single life in contrast tomonogamous sexual unions.In this volume, van Houts deals with four central themes. First, the tension between patriarchal family strategies and the individual family member's freedom of choice to marry and, if so, to what partner; second, the role played by the married priesthood in their quest to have individual agency andself-determination accepted in their own lives in the face of the growing imposition of clerical celibacy; third, the role played by women in helping society accept some degree of gender equality and self-determination to marry and in shaping the norms for married life incorporating theseprinciples; fourth, the role played by emotion in the establishment of marriage and in married life at a time when sexual and spiritual love feature prominently in medieval literature. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)306.8109Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Culture and Institutions Marriage and Parenting Marriage Biography And HistoryLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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