ABSTRACT
The dissolution of Europe’s tribes facilitated the First Sexual Revolution around the thirteenth century but also set in motion a psychological process of increasing individualism that around 1750 resulted in the Second Sexual Revolution, which sanctified individual choice. Ludvig Holberg founded modern Scandinavian drama with comedies that promoted this historically unique transition, plays that are still among the region’s most beloved. Reading his comedies in the context of this revolution reveals that Holberg—contrary to common criticism—was not an unoriginal thinker and playwright. His prescience was remarkable with regard to modern mating. From 1722 on, he dramatized the new morality that was spearheaded by domestic servants, the largest group deprived of mating by the companionate regime. His plays support the emerging morality of romantic love but warn against the pitfalls he thought would manifest themselves after the upcoming revolution. Holberg anticipated that market logic applied to gender relations would motivate a further moral transformation into an ideology evocative of our present era’s confluent love. Affluent people becoming more drawn to mate with each other would worsen economic inequalities, he predicted, which would further a process of marginalization that could disincentivize reproduction.
