ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides an excellent example of a widowed clerical concubine in fifteenth-century Spain. It argues that the widow should either allow others to defend her interests or should not push hard to protect her interests because the need to preserve her modesty outweighed the need to protect her rights. The book demonstrates that in marriages of mixed religious faith, the death of a spouse could trigger a struggle about the religion in which the children should be raised, and pose a challenge to the idea of patrìa potestas. It shows how marriage settlements in England had sharply declined in numbers by the early eighteenth century, a process which paralleled the new popularity of romantic ideals of marriage. These findings clearly undermine or complicate the idea that a more ‘egalitarian’ family emerged, as a result of a romantic revolution.
