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

  1. Marriage and Sexuality in Al-Andalus

    Manuela Marín

  2. Intimate Violence: Shrew Taming as Wedding Ritual in the Conde Lucanor

    Louise O. Vasvári

  3. The Consells-Consejos on Marriage and Their Broader Sentimental Context

    Antonio Cortijo Ocaña

    Part II. Playing the Game of Wife and Mother

  4. Pawn or Player?: Violant of Bar and the Game of Matrimonial Politics in the Crown of Aragon (1380–1396)

    Dawn Bratsch-Prince

  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

  6. Natural Love in Early Renaissance Spanish Theater: Serafina, an Anonymous Comedia of 1521

    David R. Castillo

  7. “Un engaño a los ojos”: Sex and Allegory in La Lozana andaluza

    Manuel da Costa Fontes

  8. Changing Boundaries of Licit and Illicit Unions: Concubinage and Prostitution

    Eukene Lacarra Lanz

    Part IV. Female Approaches to Power Revelation and “Moral Pornography”

  9. Writing and Sodomy in the Inquisitorial Trial (1495-1496) of Tecla Servent

    Ronald Surtz

  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