Divorce During the Protestant Reformation

In the modern urban age, divorce is becoming an increasingly prominent response to difficulties in marriage. Within the fabric of society, divorce rates have risen to almost the fiftieth percentile in several industrialized countries. Similarly, in countries that are in the process of modernization, divorce is increasing at an alarming rate. It is interesting to note some of the historical actions relating to divorce, particularly confining oneself to the premodern period of European history. This paper will focus on the subject of divorce during the period known as the Protestant Reformation, a direct challenge to the authority and ambiguity present in Catholic Europe of the Medieval Period. Specifically, the paper will overview the Reformation, look at the basic family structures common in that period, and comment on the specific trends and patterns of divorce. England and France will be used as test cases for the paper, primarily because most of the demographic analysis of the family has been done in those countries. Finally, the paper will conclude with an assessment of the way that the process of divorce specifically affected women, and will ponder the question of whether divorce during the Reformation helped to liberate women.

During the period known as the Middle Ages, roughly from the fall of Rome to the thirteenth century, life in Europe was characterized by a formal adherence to religiosity and formal social relations. The average person was inexorably ti

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se inaction, and by 1531 Henry took matters into his own hands and began the process of breaking with Rome (Latey, 1970, pp. 2835). During the Reformation, the basic structure of the family was small, the majority in fact contained fewer than five persons. Traditionally, the household was confined to parents and their unmarried children, in other words, compatible with the modern notion of the nuclear or conjugal family. There seemed to have been a basic link between marriage and the formation of households, yet there also appears to have been more than an economic link between household size and marriage patterns (Wall, 1981, pp. 4937). Similarly, during the Reformation there was a strengthening of the relationship between parents and children. This was a likely occurrence under the direct religious influence of both the Reformation and CounterReformation (Mitterauer and Sieder, 1982, pp. 67). This was also an important factor since Protestantism was somewhat more flexible, at least in its basic tenets, in dealing with familial interrelationships that Catholicism had been. In the Reformation, the Church doctrines emphasized the bonds of marriage. However, they also stressed the importance of consensus, and the agreeme

Category: History - D