Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Leo Baeck Institute Year Book
Angaben zur Quelle:
66 (2021) 120-137
Keywords:
Jewish marriage customs and rites
;
Jews Social life and customs 18th century
;
Love Religious aspects
;
Judaism
;
Jews Attitudes
Abstract:
Marriage is a central and binding institution of Jewish life. However, as a historical construct, it was never a static, immutable structure. This article focuses on the changing attitudes towards marriage among German Jews in the second half of the eighteenth century. It discusses how rational considerations external to the couple’s personal needs and desires started losing ground, while its function as a framework for emotional and erotic satisfaction intensified. As marriage was increasingly perceived in terms of self-fulfilment, many pursued happiness through matrimony, embracing the new idea of the love marriage. Although this idea developed from contemporary trends in non-Jewish society, maskilic authors used Jewish sources to maintain this position, trying to present it as consistent with tradition rather than as a break from it. The emergence of a romantic discourse was not the only transformation in the perception of marriage. The individualism that impelled the notion of a love marriage led to another type of discourse among Jewish women and men: the discourse against marriage. Using the perspectives of continuity and change, the article seeks to discern the role that Judaism and Jewish sources played in discourses about misogamy and the modernization of the traditional institution of marriage.
DOI:
10.1093/leobaeck/ybab011
URL:
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