When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe

"When Fathers Ruled" comes highly recommended by R. J. Rushdoony, and for good reason. (We should always take seriously the recommendations from a man who read 40,000 books in his lifetime). Steven Ozment begins this jewel of a work by informing us of the pathetic state of marriage at the dawn of the sixteenth century. Neo-Platonism* reigned supreme within the Church during the late Middle Ages (as it does today, except without the misogyny, that is, hatred of women--women were viewed then as less "spiritual" than were men, quite a contrast to Victorianism!), and this carried on past the Renaissance. Along with the neo-Platonic disdain for marriage (for "spiritual" reasons) among primarily the clergy, monks, and nuns was an equally unhealthy disdain from the lawless populace, those who preferred fornication and adultery in the local whorehouses. Not only did the Reformers have to contest neo-Platonism and its despising of the familial institution, but they also had to contest Roman Catholic marriage laws, which did more harm than good for European society. The Reformers found the allowance of "secret" marriages and the various "impediments" to marriage by the Roman Catholic Church to be most disruptive to European society, and they set about to change these laws. Reading this book is somewhat of an eye-opener if one tends to hearken back to the Reformation era with romantic notions of a near-perfect society. The Reformers, as Ozment teaches, faced much defiance during their perverse times. Ozment details many curiosities, including the "kidnapping" of nuns from convents and nunneries (Ozment calls them "cloisters") by their newly-converted, Protestant relatives. Perhaps the Reformers' best contribution to the family was the restoration of the biblical roles of husband/father and wife/mother. They attacked with equal vehemence the woman who usurped the role of her covenant head and the "lion" of a husband who terrorized his wife. Women were perhaps the largest beneficiaries of their reforms. With the help of the Reformers women began to see the convent, and its various abuses, as less than ideal, and they embraced biblical marriage instead. Prior to the Reformation some towns held eight times more cloistered women than men (this was primarily due to misogyny). Not so afterwards. Some, as previously mentioned, had to be "rescued" by loved-ones while a few escaped on their own. One thing was certain, though: there would no longer be convents and nunneries so full that many women had to be sent away for lack of room. The 1520s saw a transformation in how men viewed women. The young generation of women in the 1520s, at least in Lutheran Germany, shunned the convents and embraced covenantal marriage, arguably, unlike any time in centuries past. Ozment then goes on to detail the various marriage and divorce laws in several cities, e.g., Zurich, Basel, and Nuremberg, and their accompanying problems. He spends a whole chapter on wives

While most history of Reformation Europe will focus on the events in the pulpit, classroom, and council chamber, Ozment's _When Fathers Ruled_ returns to the hearthside to examine family life in the 16th century. Written in a scholarly but readable style -- and yes, the footnotes are worth examining -- Steven Ozment discusses the impact of the Reformation in the daily activities and home lives of both leader and follower in the pivotal era of the Second Millenium. Many of his observations are food for thought today, such as the impact of institutional childcare on the health (and longevity) of children in France. His quotations from popular books of the day -- the rise of which was as radical a development as the explosion of the Internet is today -- flesh out a portrait of a patriarchal society where most women may have been at home, but were most certainly not cut off from the thought and ferment of this tumultuous era. Many of the footnotes cite the original German with non-standard spelling (the correction of which was a later outgrowth of Luther's Bible and Gutenburg's press, incidentally), which either adds to their charm or frustrates the "babelfish.com" dependent. Overall, an excellent companion to d'Aubigne's _History of the Reformation_. Four stars.