The Formation of the Couple

Abstract

Several interpretations have been proposed of the changes that trans formed conjugal life in preindustrial Europe and brought about the emergence of the couple. Some focus on economics, others on the intellectual elites, and still others on the role of the state. In the period from 1500 to 1800, one can accept the idea of a permissive sixteenth, austere seventeenth, and liberated eighteenth century, but only in terms of non-linear evolution containing constraints, ruptures, and more than a simple loosening of control. It is during the long period of austere conjugal morality and surveillance of private life that a barrier between a public and private sphere become apparent, forming a space within which a couple was no longer a simple unit of reproduction but a focus of affection and solidarity.