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Sex, Love, and Marriage from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment

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Sex, Love, and Marriage from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment

By: Jennifer McNabb, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Jennifer McNabb
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About this listen

There is a common misconception that sex, love, and marriage in medieval and early modern Europe followed very specific, inflexible rules and expectations that remained unchanged for centuries. But the boundaries of matrimony, sexuality, and romantic relationships have always been complicated, and the rules surrounding them are forever changing.

Throughout the 10 lectures of Sex, Love, and Marriage from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, you will find that looking closer at marriage and sexuality in this period reveals a vibrant history of flexibility, of questioning and adaptation, and of evolutionary - and sometimes even revolutionary - change. With Professor Jennifer McNabb, you will explore these crucial aspects of the human experience as they were formed and transformed in the centuries that stretched between the Roman adoption of Christianity and the emergence of the Enlightenment. Along with the more traditional aspects of sex and marriage, you will also examine:

  • The Christian church’s complex relationship with sex and celibacy
  • The experience of the unmarried or formerly married in a marriage-driven society
  • Prostitution and commercialized sex
  • The realities vs. the fiction of forbidden love and unrecognized unions
  • The rise of companionate marriage
  • How the Protestant Reformation altered the sexual and matrimonial landscape
  • And more

As you look closely at these and other dimensions of love and sex across a millennium of change and resistance, you will get a more nuanced and honest view of the complexity of our past and how medieval and early modern perspectives on sex, love, and marriage continue to influence the way we think about and experience them today.

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A very interesting look across the topic and a greatly informative series of lectures. Well worth a listen

Fascinating research

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very interesting, there has always been a different set of stricter rule for women then men. I love the courses offered on audible. more please.

interesting.

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A fascinating account of how the medieval church tried to control human lust and love, making rules for its expression. Celibacy was seen as pure and sex as sinful. Marriage was for those who didn't have the will to control their sin: 'better to marry than to burn' (i.e. In hell). With the coming of the Enlightenment, marriage for love and companionship became possible and religion lost its all consuming grip on people's private life, yet a residual influence remains. Really fascinating!

Very interesting!

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Incredibly detailed, pulling directly from the source material. Would have been interesting to hear more about same sex relationships, but the author did stress that there was a lack of material on this in the historical record.

Great course

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