Saskia Lettmaier – författare

The common law action for breach of promise of marriage originated in the mid-seventeenth century, but it was not until the nineteenth century that it rose to prominence and became a regular feature in law courts and gossip columns. By 1940 the action was defunct, it was inconceivable for a respectable woman to bring such a case before the courts. What accounts for this dramatic rise and fall?This book ties the story of the action's prominence and decline between 1800 and 1940 to changes in the prevalent conception of woman, her ideal role in society, sexual relations, and the family. It argues that the idiosyncratic breach-of-promise suit and Victorian notions of ideal femininity were inextricably, and fatally, entwined. It presents the nineteenth-century breach-of-promise action as a codification of the Victorian ideal of true womanhood and explores the longer-term implications of this infusion of mythologized femininity for the law, in particular for the position of plaintiffs. Surveying three consecutive time periods - the early nineteenth century, the high Victorian and the post-Victorian periods - and adopting an interdisciplinary approach that combines the perspectives of legal history, social history, and literary analysis, it argues that the feminizing process, by shaping a cause of action in accordance with an ideal at odds with the very notion of women going to law, imported a fatal structural inconsistency that at first remained obscured, but ultimately vulgarized and undid the cause of action. Alongside more than two hundred and fifty real-life breach-of-promise cases, the book examines literary and cinematic renditions of the breach-of-promise theme, by artists ranging from Charles Dickens to P.G. Wodehouse, to expose the subtle yet unmistakable ways in which what happened (and what changed) in the breach-of-promise courtroom influenced the changing representation of the breach-of-promise plaintiff in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature and film.

This interdisciplinary collection illuminates the religious roots of marriage and divorce in Europe and their divergent history from the 18th century to the present day. The 18th century was a pivotal period in terms of how the rules governing marriage and divorce were determined, with authority to set and adjudicate on rules shifting from religious authorities to the state. This book evaluates these historical developments, paying particular attention to the waxing or waning influence of religious institutions, values, or norms and whether further suggestions for reform have been made. Volume 1 of A History of Family Law in Europe examines how, and the extent to which, marriage formation and dissolution are regulated in the written texts of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox traditions. The contributors analyse the respective traditions’ teachings on marriage formation, marital impediments, and dissolubility, including these traditions’ views as to the socially binding character of these teachings. Jurisdiction-specific chapters focusing on countries across Northern, Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe examine the regulation of marriage formation and dissolution in the context of religious and other cultural influences. This book brings together the insights of an international team of leading marriage-law scholars across Europe, and will be a significant resource for scholars of family law, legal history, and the history of religion.

Hermann Kantorowicz ist einer der bedeutendsten und vielseitigsten Rechtswissenschaftler des 20. Jahrhunderts. Die Beiträge des Bandes heben die vielfältigen Facetten seines Werks hervor. Sie zeigen anhand von Kantorowicz' ebenso gelehrten wie äußerst originellen Beiträgen zu Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtstheorie, aber auch bereits zu einer speziellen Wissenschaftstheorie der Jurisprudenz, wie viel die gegenwärtige Rechtswissenschaft von Kantorowicz lernen und in seinen Schriften wiederentdecken kann.

Saskia Lettmaier widmet sich der vielleicht bedeutendsten Transformation, die das Ehe(band)recht in den letzten 500 Jahren erfahren hat: Seiner Umgestaltung von einer einheitlichen, in der Hand der Universalkirche liegenden und von theologischen Denkmustern geprägten Ordnung hin zu einer Vielzahl von disparaten staatlichen Einzelordnungen, die von säkularen Leitvorstellungen geprägt sind. Am Beispiel von England und Preußen analysiert sie, wie und warum es zu diesem Wandel kam und warum die Veränderungen von Territorium zu Territorium unterschiedlich ausfielen.

In Germany, as elsewhere, couples and individuals suffering from unwanted childlessness have two principal means to overcome it. One, adoption, has existed and has been quite heavily regulated in Germany for centuries. The other, assisted reproduction, has only recently come into its own with advances in medical technology and has not yet been comprehensively dealt with by the German legislature.This monograph provides a survey of adoption and assisted reproduction as alternative (non-coital) ways of establishing parent-child relationships in Germany.Other titles published in this series: - Economic Consequences of Divorce in Korea, Hyunjin Kim; isbn 9789004323711- Assisted Reproduction in Israel; Law, Religion and Culture, Avishalom Westreich; isbn 9789004346062- Feminicides of Girl Children in the Family Context; An International Human Rights Law Approach, Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati; isbn 9789004330870