Marriage and Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia

First published in 2002. This fascinating collection of essays examines the politics of gender and desire in premodern Iberia. Eukene Lacarra Lanz 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 the millennium, from approximately 650 to 1650 A.D. The contributors utilise 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, moralists, politicians and scientists alike. Marriage and sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia offers a rich history and insightful analysis of some of the central themes of Hispanic literary and cultural life.

Eukene Lacarra Lanz is Professor of Medieval Spanish Literature at the University of Basque Country in Spain.

Part 1 From Maidenhood to the Marriage State; 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 2 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 3 Love and Sexuality; 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 4 Female Approaches to Power; 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, Gwendolyn Barnes-Karol, Nicholas Spadaccini;