This project explores the impact of the English Reformation on conceptions of love and desire within marital and sexual relationships. It examines the mentalities of ordinary men and women in early modern England and explores how they constructed and experienced their sexual relationships, how they viewed the role of love, sex and desire in marriage and the extent to which they conformed to changing theological condemnations of illicit sex.
The English Reformation fundamentally changed the institution of marriage in early modern England. This project explores the impact of the English Reformation on conceptions of love and desire within marital and sexual relationships. It examines the mentalities of ordinary men and women in early modern England and explores how they constructed and experienced their sexual relationships, how they viewed the role of love, sex and desire in marriage and the extent to which they conformed to growing theological condemnations of illicit sex. Whilst work has been done on legal and ecclesiastical changes to marital and sexual conventions in post-Reformation England, little has been done on how and if these changes affected ordinary people. The project spans from 1500-1660 to allow for an exploration of marital and sexual attitudes both before and after the Religious Settlement of 1559 and for a consideration of the impact of the 1650 Puritan Adultery Act on ordinary people’s experiences and understanding of marital and sexual relationships. It also re-evaluates the role of love in pre-modern marriages. Previous debate has centred on whether or not early modern marriages were defined by love. This project does not debate the existence of love but, rather, investigates its construction, expression, performance and regulation. This study fills a vital historiographical gap by combining an exploration of changing theological and popular attitudes to love, sex and marriage with an analysis of the understandings and experiences of marital and sexual practices by men and women in the first century after the Reformation and how these practises were expressed emotionally.
Related Publications
“Rebecca West’s Demonic Marriage: Exploring Emotions, Ritual and Women’s Agency in Seventeenth-Century England” Women’s History (formerly Women’s History Magazine)., accepted, expected publication date Summer 2016.
“Church and Parish Records” in Emotions in Early Modern Europe: An Introduction, ed. Susan Broomhall. In press with Routledge, expected publication date 2016.
Image: "How Reymont and Melusina were betrothed / And by the bishop were blessed in their bed on their wedlock" Woodcut from "The Melusine", 15th c. Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
