ABSTRACT
Although Protestant and Catholic reformers debated where and which reforms were most needed, they nonetheless did agree that the gap between marital law and marital practice had a 'detrimental effect on the holy estate of matrimony'. In its effort to reform actual marital practice, the Catholic reform movement – the Council of Trent made the establishment of the marital bond a public ritual firmly grounded in parish life. The secular magistracy Executors against Blasphemy were appointed to judge special cases of premarital sex or seduction among the popular classes when the sexual contact had been preceded by a marriage promise, possibly exchanged in the presence of witnesses. By the beginning of the seventeenth century the court of the Venetian Patriarch had become essentially a women's court: marital cases were increasingly brought by women, while male plaintiffs outnumbered female plaintiffs only in cases for the restitution of conjugal rights.
