Lisa Dittrich, LMU München and Maren Röger, University of Augsburg

Venue: München
Time: 16.-17.09.2021
Proposals by: 31.01.2021

The institution of marriage had been astonishingly stable in central aspects throughout centuries. However, marriage was always discussed, reshaped and differently lived. We observe the most thorough changes in Europe since the end of the 19th century – many of them being labelled as a modernization of marriage. The modern states imposed their paradigm of civil administration over church rules, the changing working environment led to changes in private couples and family economies. Political debates sparked around the legal position of women. Moreover, marriage was increasingly thought of and lived as an emotional based relationship between two persons not a contract or a sacrament.

The planned conference will ask how marriage as an institution and as a way of life has changed in Europe in the long 20th century, in the context and under the influence of different legal and state systems as well as economic and civil society conditions. In doing so, we are especially interested in comparative approaches to identify joint legal and societal developments in Europe on the one hand, such as the facilitation of divorces or the tendency towards gender equality. On the other hand, we want to discuss differences and long-term cultural influences. Anthropologists, for example, characterize different models in Europe and distinguish between a Northern and Western European model focused on nuclear families and the Eastern and Southern model embedded in the larger intergenerational family context. These simplified models, however, obscure the historical development, which was a complex process of exchange between state, society and individuals.

Bringing together experts for different European regions, we want to request the typical division in research regarding Eastern and Western Europe. The conference will ask how the relationship between state, society and individuals can be … read more and source (Web).