Skip to main content

A History of Family Law in Europe, Volume 1

The Formation and Dissolution of Marriage, Religious Roots, and Diverging Histories

A History of Family Law in Europe, Volume 1 cover

A History of Family Law in Europe, Volume 1

The Formation and Dissolution of Marriage, Religious Roots, and Diverging Histories

Quantity
Pre-order. Available 01 Apr 2027
$187.19 RRP $233.99 Website price saving $46.80 (20%)

Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available

Description

This edited collection investigates the religious roots of marriage and divorce in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox nations across Europe and shows how their laws have evolved and diverged, from 1700 through to the present day.

The eighteenth century was a pivotal period for the rules governing marriage and divorce, with the authority to establish and adjudicate on them shifting from church to state. The Formation and Dissolution of Marriage, Religious Roots, and Diverging Histories evaluates these historical developments, paying particular attention to the waxing or waning influence of religious institutions, values, and norms, and asking what other proposals for reform might have been on the agenda.

As Volume 1 of A History of Family Law in Europe, this book examines how, and to what extent, marriage and divorce are regulated in the written texts of Europe's various religious traditions. The contributors analyse each system's teachings on marriage formation, marital impediments, and dissolubility, including ideas on the socially binding character of those precepts. Jurisdiction-specific chapters focusing on countries across Northern, Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe explore the regulation of marriage formation and dissolution in the context of religion and other cultural influences.

The Formation and Dissolution of Marriage, Religious Roots, and Diverging Histories brings together the insights of an international team of leading marriage-law scholars from across Europe, and is a significant resource for scholars of family law, legal history, and the history of religion.

Accessibility Information

Additional accessibility information

  • EPUB 3.0
  • Conforms with the requirements of EPUB Accessibility Spec v1.1
  • WCAG level AA
  • WCAG v2.2 compliant
  • accessibility@bloomsbury.com

Hazards

The publication contains no hazards

Support for non-visual reading

  • No accessibility features offered by the reading system, device or reading software are disabled or otherwise unusable with the product
  • Has alternative text descriptions for images

Visual adjustments

Appearance of the text and page layout can be modified according to the capabilities of the reading system (font family and size, spaces, as well as color of background and text)

Navigation

  • Page list to go to pages from the print source version
  • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
  • All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order
  • Content is enhanced with ARIA roles to optimize organization and facilitate navigation
  • Purposes of all links are made clear

Rich content

Language tagging provided

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Rebecca Probert (University of Exeter, UK) and Saskia Lettmaier (University of Hamburg, Germany)

Part A: The Formation and Dissolution of Marriage in the Christian Traditions
2. The Formation and Dissolution of Marriage in the Western Catholic Tradition (From the New Testament to the Council of Trent), Charles Donahue Jr (Harvard Law School, USA)
3. The Formation and Dissolution of Marriage in the Roman Catholic Tradition (From the Council of Trent to the Present), Charles Donahue Jr (Harvard Law School, USA)
4. The Formation of Dissolution of Marriage in the Protestant Traditions, John Witte Jr (Emory University, USA)
5. The Formation and Dissolution of Marriage in the Orthodox Tradition, Anthony G Roeber (Penn State University, USA)

Part B: The Legal Regulation of Marriage Formation and Dissolution in Europe, 1700 to the Present
Northern Europe
6. United Kingdom and Ireland, Rebecca Probert (University of Exeter, UK), Maebh Harding (University College Dublin, Ireland), Gillian Black (University of Edinburgh, UK) and Sharon Thompson (Cardiff University, UK)
7. Denmark, Morten Kjaer and Annette Kronborg (University of Southern Denmark)
8. Norway, John Asland and Katrine Kjærheim Fredwall (University of Oslo, Norway)

Western Europe
9. Germany, Saskia Lettmaier and Moritz-Philipp Schulz (University of Hamburg, Germany)
10. France, Jean-Louis Halpérin (École normale supérieure, France)
11. Belgium and the Netherlands, Walter Pintens (University of Leuven, Belgium)
12. Austria, Karin Neuwirth (Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria)

Southern Europe
13. Spain, Carlos Martínez de Aguirre Aldaz (University of Saragossa, Spain)
14. Italy, Mark Seymour (University of Otago, New Zealand)
15. Greece, Evdoxios Doxiadis (Simon Fraser University, Canada)

Eastern Europe
16. Poland, Piotr Fiedorczyk (University of Bialystok, Poland)
17. Estonia and Latvia, Marju Luts-Sootak and Susann Liin (University of Tartu, Estonia)
18. Hungary, Orsoyla Agnes Szeibert (Eötvös Lorand University, Hungary)
19. Bulgaria, Simeon Groysman (University of Sofia St Kliment Ohridski, Bulgaria)

Part C: Marriage Formation and Dissolution in Europe in Historical-Comparative Perspective
20. Comparative Conclusion, Saskia Lettmaier (University of Hamburg, Germany) and Rebecca Probert (University of Exeter, UK)

Product details

Published 01 Apr 2027
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Pages 400
ISBN 9781509987177
Imprint Hart Publishing
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Saskia Lettmaier

Saskia Lettmaier is Professor of Law at the Univer…

Anthology Editor

Rebecca Probert

Rebecca Probert is Professor of Law at University…

Related Titles

Get 30% off in the May sale - for one week only

Environment: Staging