ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the dynamics of gender relations within marriage during the nineteenth century through the prism of cases of domestic violence and spousal cruelty presented before the Cleve Landgericht. In particular it analyzes the consequences of a contradiction between a legal conception of marriage, enshrined in the Civil Code, which upheld a patriarchal model of marriage and thus provided men with some justification for their use of physical violence against wives. The women in Cleve who used the divorce law to challenge the dominance of their husbands often took this step from sheer desperation. Drink was often at the heart of financial disputes and violent conflicts, but drink in itself is not a sufficient explanation for men's violent behaviour towards their wives. Sexual relations were also a focus of the element of exchange implicit in the marriage contract and thus this arena was likely to feature as another node of conflict.
