Family and Gender in Renaissance Italy, 1300–1600

This book studies family life and gender within Italy through the lens of law and legal disputes.

Thomas Kuehn (Author)

9781107008779, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 March 2017

404 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 2.7 cm, 0.68 kg

'The book complements Kuehn's previous work on the intersections of law, family ties, women's roles, illegitimacy, and issues of inheritance in Renaissance Florence … which offers new avenues for scholarly exploration. This excellent study vividly exposes the ambiguities found in legal and social practices that created more flexible forms of family life than one rigid patriarchal and patrilineal system in Renaissance Italy.' Megan Moran, Journal of Social History

This book studies family life and gender broadly within Italy, not just one region or city, from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Paternal control of the household was paramount in Italian life at this time, with control of property and even marital choices and career paths laid out for children and carried out from beyond the grave by means of written testaments. However, the reality was always more complex than a simple reading of local laws and legal doctrines would seem to permit, especially when there were no sons to step forward as heirs. Family disputes provided an opening for legal ambiguities to redirect property and endow women with property and means of control. This book uses the decisions of lawyers and judges to examine family dynamics through the lens of law and legal disputes.

Acknowledgments
List of jurists
Consilia
Statutes
Introduction. Families, culture, and law in Renaissance Italy, 1300–1600
1. Family in law and culture
2. Gender in law and culture
3. Family life and the laws
4. Household: marriage and married life
5. Inheritance: intestacy
6. Inheritance: testaments
7. Paternalism: family and state
8. Crisis of family and succession?
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD]