I. The Reformation of Sex
A. The Nature of the Problem
1. The “Sacramentality” of Sex and Marriage
2. Sex and the Priesthood: Clerical Celibacy and “Concubinage”
B. The Reform of Sex and Marriage
1. Seizing Jurisdiction: Marriage Courts
2. Asserting Parental Authority in Marriage
3. Disciplining Sexuality
C. A Cause Célèbre: The Bigamy of Landgrave Philip of Hessen

Image: Michael Wolgemut (ca. 1434-1519), Ursula Hans Tucherin (1478). Ursula Tucher was the wife of Hans Tucher (1428-1491), head of the Tucher trading house in Nuremberg and a member of the city's patrician elite. This placed her at the very top of the social pyramid in urban Germany. Image source: Web Gallery of Art.

II. Perspectives on Reformation and Gender
A. The “Emancipation Thesis”
1. Spiritual Egalitarianism and the Elevation of Marriage
2. Re-Valuation of Marriage: “Companionate Marriage”
3. “Liberating” the Convents
4. Divorce and the Discipline of Marriage
B. Reformation as a “Crisis of Gender Relations”
1. Reformation and the Gendering of Social Roles
2. Reformation and the Patriarchal Household
3. Masculinization of the Public Sphere
4. Elimination of a Female Sphere

Image: Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Portrait of a Woman, said to be Caritas Pirckheimer
Image: Argula von Grumbach, Letter to Prince Johann, Count Palatine (Erfurt, 1524)
Image: Katharina Schütz Zell, A Letter to the Whole Citizenry of the City of Strasbourg (Strasbourg, 1557)
Image: Ursula Weyda, Against the Unchristian Letter and Book of Blasphemies by Abbot Simon of Pegau (Zwickau, 1524)

Image: The Young Man and the Old Widow
Image: The Old Man and the Young Woman
Image: The Tamed Lion (1524)

Chart: Prosecution of Sexual Delinquency in Emden, 1558-1825
Chart: Prosecution of Marital and Familial Delinquency in Emden, 1558-1825
Chart: Protestant Legislation on Marriage
Chart: Divorce Rates in Sixteenth-Century Protestant Polities

Image left: Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), Adam and Eve (1533), Wood, 47 x 35 cm, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Image source: Web Gallery of Art.

Identifications:

Present Vows: Sponsalia pro verba de praesenti
Future Vows: Sponsalia pro verba de futuro

“Companionate Marriage”
“Sacramentality” of Marriage