Marriage and Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia
Ed. Eukene Lacarra Lanz
This collection of essays examines the politics of gender and desire in premodern Iberia. The editor brings together a group of noted specialists in Arabic, as well as Castilian, Catalan, and other Romance languages, to investigate the changes that affected marriage and sexuality over the course of a millennium, from approximately 650 to 1650 A.D. The contributors utilize a variety of literary and philosophical texts, legal documents, and medical treatises to explore a broad range of topics, such as shrew taming, wedding rituals, wet-nursing, cross-dressing, sodomy, and moral pornography. The volume's interdisciplinary approach traces the origins and genealogies of the predominant discourses on these subjects that engaged the minds of medieval and premodern writers, moralist, politicians, and scientists alike.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Eukene Lacarra Lanz
Part I. From Maidenhood to the Marriage State Domesticating Women
Chapter 1
Marriage and Sexuality in Al-Andalus
Manuela Marín
Chapter 2
Intimate Violence: Shrew Taming as Wedding Ritual in the Conde Lucanor
Louise O. Vasvári
Chapter 3
The Consells-Consejos on Marriage and Their Broader Sentimental Context
Antonio Cortijo Ocaña
Part II. Playing the Game of Wife and Mother
Chapter 4
Pawn or Player?: Violant of Bar and the Game of Matrimonial Politics in the Crown of Aragon (1380–1396)
Dawn Bratsch-Prince
Chapter 5
Milking the Poor: Wet-nursing and the Sexual Economy of Early Modern Spain
Emilie L. Bergmann
Part III. Love and Sexuality Allegory of Society’s Corruption
Chapter 6
Natural Love in Early Renaissance Spanish Theater: Serafina, an Anonymous Comedia of 1521
David R. Castillo
Chapter 7
“Un engaño a los ojos”: Sex and Allegory in La Lozana andaluza
Manuel da Costa Fontes
Chapter 8
Changing Boundaries of Licit and Illicit Unions: Concubinage and Prostitution
Eukene Lacarra Lanz
Part IV. Female Approaches to Power Revelation and “Moral Pornography”
Chapter 9
Writing and Sodomy in the Inquisitorial Trial (1495-1496) of Tecla Servent
Ronald Surtz
Chapter 10
“Moral Pornography”: Angela Carter and María de Zayas
Marina S. Brownlee
Afterword
Sexuality, Marriage, and Power in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia
Gwendolyn Barnes-Karol and Nicholas Spadaccini