ABSTRACT
With the publication of the first Lutheran church ordinance in 1538, divorce was permitted for the first time in the German county of Lippe, allowing the “innocent” partner to remarry. However, since the local marriage court, in line with the Protestant legal discourses of its time, recognized only adultery and malicious desertion as legitimate grounds for divorce, most lawsuits for marital discord ended with a judgment ordering only a marital separation, that is, a divorce from bed and board.
While several studies have mainly dealt with the causes and manifestations of conflicts in marriage as well as with the various forms of conflict (injuria, domestic violence, etc.), the disputes between the spouses after the court-ordered separation have so far received far less attention. Divorce from bed and board, however, did not usually end marital strife. Rather, the verdict brought about new economic and social conflicts, primarily over the division of property and the obligation to support children, as well as the exclusion of the separated couple from the Church communion.
On the basis of trial records of the Lippe marriage court at the turn of the 18th century, this chapter highlights the central areas of conflict that were negotiated after the court-ordered separation. On the other hand, it also asks why and with what social and economic repercussions the Lippe marriage court opted for separation from bed-and-board – and not for divorce – even in cases of irreconcilability.
