In early modern Europe the sacrament of matrimony represented   a life-long commitment, and the Catholic Church accepted few grounds for   the dissolution of an unhappy marriage. One of these was an unconsummated   marriage owing to the sexual impotency of one of the partners. Even then,   an annulment was granted only after a Church court had conducted a lengthy   investigation of the case, soliciting testimony from numerous witnesses as   well as from the aggrieved couple, and had subjected the allegedly impotent   spouse (and sometimes both spouses) to an intimate physical examination.    Historian Edward J. Behrend-Mart?nez studied the transcripts of   eighty-three impotency trials conducted by the ecclesiastical court of the   Spanish diocese of Calahorra in La Rioja--an area incorporating both Basque   and Castilian populations and including urban and rural parishes. From   these records, he produced a detailed account of private life and public   sexuality in these early years of the modern era.    The transcripts provide insights into the dynamics of daily marital life   and the role that property, gender, and personal preference played in   marriage. They also reveal information about medical knowledge at the time   and about contemporary understanding of the physiology and psychology of   sex. Unfit for Marriage is the first study in English to address the   proceedings of a Spanish ecclesiastical court and is a vivid portrait of   marriage and marital sex in early modern Europe. It is essential reading to   anyone interested in social history, gender studies, canon law, legal   history, sexuality, and the history of divorce in Western Europe.

Unfit For Marriage: Impotent Spouses On Trial In The Basque Region Of Spain, 1650-1750 (The Basque Series) PDF

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