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When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Studies in Cultural History)
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.8094
EAN: 9780674951211
ISBN: 0674951212
Label: Harvard University Press
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 248
Publication Date: October 01, 1985
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Studio: Harvard University Press
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Editorial Review: Here is a lively study of marriage and the family during the Reformation, primarily in Gemany and Switzerland, that dispels the commonly held notion of fathers as tyrannical and families as loveless. Did husbands and wives love one another in Reformation Europe? Did the home and family life matter to most people? In this wide-ranging work, Steven Ozment has gathered the answers of contemporaries to these questions. His subject is the patriarchal family in Germany and Switzerland, primarily among Protestants. But unlike modern scholars from Philippe Arics to Lawrence Stone, Ozment finds the fathers of early modern Europe sympathetic and even admirable. They were not domineering or loveless men, nor were their homes the training ground for passive citizenry in an age of political absolutism. From prenatal care to graveside grief, they expressed deep love for their wives and children. Rather than a place where women and children were bullied by male chauvinists, the Protestant home was the center of a domestic reform movement against Renaissance antifeminism and was an attempt to resolve the crises of family life. Demanding proper marriages for all women, Martin Luther and his followers suppressed convents and cloisters as the chief institutions of womankind's sexual repression, cultural deprivation, and male clerical domination. Consent, companionship, and mutual respect became the watchwords of marriage. And because they did, genuine divorce and remarriage became possible among Christians for the first time. This graceful book restores humanity to the Reformation family and to family history.
Customer Reviews
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Rating:  - Ozment's Historical Jewel!
"When Fathers Ruled" comes highly recommended by R. J. Rushdoony, and for good reason. (We should always take seriously the recommendations from a man who read 40,000 books in his lifetime). Steven Ozment begins this jewel of a work by informing us of the pathetic state of marriage at the dawn of the sixteenth century. Neo-Platonism* reigned supreme within the Church during the late Middle Ages (as it does today, except without the misogyny, that is, hatred of women--women were viewed ... Read More
Rating:  - Ozment's _When Fathers Ruled_ deals in matters of the hearth
While most history of Reformation Europe will focus on the events in the pulpit, classroom, and council chamber, Ozment's _When Fathers Ruled_ returns to the hearthside to examine family life in the 16th century. Written in a scholarly but readable style -- and yes, the footnotes are worth examining -- Steven Ozment discusses the impact of the Reformation in the daily activities and home lives of both leader and follower in the pivotal era of the Second Millenium. Many of his observations are ... Read More
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