The significant changes in early modern German marriage practices included many unions that violated some taboo. That taboo could be theological and involve the marriage of monks and nuns, or refer to social misalliances as when commoners and princes (or princesses) wed. Equally transgressive were unions that crossed religious boundaries, such as marriages between Catholics and Protestants, those that violated ethnic or racial barriers, and those that broke kin-related rules. Taking as a point of departure Martin Luther''s redefinition of marriage, the contributors to this volume spin out the multiple ways that the Reformers'' attempts to simplify and clarify marriage affected education, philosophy, literature, high politics, diplomacy, and law. Ranging from the Reformation, through the ages of confessionalization, to the Enlightenment, Mixed Matches addresses the historical complexity of the socio-cultural institution of marriage.

The significant changes in early modern German marriage practices included many unions that violated some taboo. That taboo could be theological and involve the marriage of monks and nuns, or refer to social misalliances as when commoners and princes (or princesses) wed. Equally transgressive were unions that crossed religious boundaries, such as marriages between Catholics and Protestants, those that violated ethnic or racial barriers, and those that broke kin-related rules. Taking as a point of departure Martin Luther’s redefinition of marriage, the contributors to this volume spin out the multiple ways that the Reformers’ attempts to simplify and clarify marriage affected education, philosophy, literature, high politics, diplomacy, and law. Ranging from the Reformation, through the ages of confessionalization, to the Enlightenment, Mixed Matches addresses the historical complexity of the socio-cultural institution of marriage.

Introduction: Transgressive Unions
David M. Luebke

Chapter 1. ‘It is not forbidden that a man may have more than one wife’: Luther’s Pastoral Advice on Bigamy and Marriage
David Whitford

Chapter 2. Celibacy—Marriage—Un-Marriage: The Controversy over Celibacy and the Marriage of Priests in the Early Reformation
Wolfang Breul

Chapter 3. ‘Nothing More than Common Whores and Knaves’: Married Nums and Monks in the Early German Reformation
Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer

Chapter 4. Transgressive Unions and Concepts of Honor in Early Modern Defamation Lawsuits
Ralf-Peter Fuchs

Chapter 5. Negotiating Rank in Early Modern Marital Mismatches
Michael Sikora

Chapter 6. Between Conscience and Coercion: Confessionally Mixed Marriages Between Church, State, and Family
Dagmar Freist

Chapter 7. The Rhetoric of Difference: The Marriage Negotiations Between Queen Christina of Sweden and Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg
Daniel Riches

Chapter 8. Mixed Matches and Inter-Confessional Dialogue: The Hannoverian Succession and the Protestant Dynasties of Europe in the Early Eighteenth Century
Alexander Schunka

Chapter 9. Trans-Ethnic Unions in Early Modern German Travel Literature
Antje Flüchter

Chapter 10. The Meaning of Love: Emotion and Kinship in Early Modern Incest Discourses
Claudia Jarzebowski

Chapter 11. Aufklärung, Literature, and Fatherly Love: An Eighteenth-Century Case of Incest
Mary Lindemann

Afterword: Shifting Boundaries and Boundary Shifters: Transgressive Unions and the History of Marriage in Early Modern Germany
Joel F. Harrington

Bibliography
Contributors
Index