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Sex, Love, and Marriage from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment
4 hours and 57 minutes
There is a common misconception that sex, love, and marriage in medieval and early modern Europe followed very specific, inflexible rules and expectations that remained unchanged for centuries. But the boundaries of matrimony, sexuality, and romantic relationships have always been complicated, and the rules surrounding them are forever changing.
Throughout the 10 lectures of Sex, Love, and Marriage from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, you will find that looking closer at marriage and sexuality in this period reveals a vibrant history of flexibility, of questioning and adaptation, and of evolutionary - and sometimes even revolutionary - change. With Professor Jennifer McNabb, you will explore these crucial aspects of the human experience as they were formed and transformed in the centuries that stretched between the Roman adoption of Christianity and the emergence of the Enlightenment. Along with the more traditional aspects of sex and marriage, you will also examine:
The Christian church’s complex relationship with sex and celibacy
The experience of the unmarried or formerly married in a marriage-driven society
Prostitution and commercialized sex
The realities vs. the fiction of forbidden love and unrecognized unions
The rise of companionate marriage
How the Protestant Reformation altered the sexual and matrimonial landscape
And more
As you look closely at these and other dimensions of love and sex across a millennium of change and resistance, you will get a more nuanced and honest view of the complexity of our past and how medieval and early modern perspectives on sex, love, and marriage continue to influence the way we think about and experience them today.
There is a common misconception that sex, love, and marriage in medieval and early modern Europe followed very specific, inflexible rules and expectations that remained unchanged for centuries. But the boundaries of matrimony, sexuality, and romantic relationships have always been complicated, and the rules surrounding them are forever changing.
Throughout the 10 lectures of Sex, Love, and Marriage from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, you will find that looking closer at marriage and sexuality in this period reveals a vibrant history of flexibility, of questioning and adaptation, and of evolutionary - and sometimes even revolutionary - change. With Professor Jennifer McNabb, you will explore these crucial aspects of the human experience as they were formed and transformed in the centuries that stretched between the Roman adoption of Christianity and the emergence of the Enlightenment. Along with the more traditional aspects of sex and marriage, you will also examine:
The Christian church’s complex relationship with sex and celibacy
The experience of the unmarried or formerly married in a marriage-driven society
Prostitution and commercialized sex
The realities vs. the fiction of forbidden love and unrecognized unions
The rise of companionate marriage
How the Protestant Reformation altered the sexual and matrimonial landscape
And more
As you look closely at these and other dimensions of love and sex across a millennium of change and resistance, you will get a more nuanced and honest view of the complexity of our past and how medieval and early modern perspectives on sex, love, and marriage continue to influence the way we think about and experience them today.
5 pages, Audible Audio
Published August 17, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 23, 2021
Sex, Love, and Marriage from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment (Audiobook) is part of the Audible Plus catalogue that subscribers can listen to for free. Jennifer McNabb examines the misconceptions that most people have regarding sex, love, and marriage in medieval and early modern Europe through 10 well studied, thought-provoking lectures.
I would recommend it.
I would recommend it.
January 3, 2025
Sex, Love, and Marriage from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment is a series of lectures that explore the evolving views and practices surrounding these topics throughout this time period. McNabb covers a few interesting topics such as the influence on religion, the evolution of the practice and view of marriage, and prostitution.
Not having a strong background in this subject, I cannot verify McNabb's research, but it does seem well researched. The presentation does not seem lean heavily on opinions and bias, and gives quite a few views and tidbits that might be useful in casual conversations about sex in the middle ages.
Not having a strong background in this subject, I cannot verify McNabb's research, but it does seem well researched. The presentation does not seem lean heavily on opinions and bias, and gives quite a few views and tidbits that might be useful in casual conversations about sex in the middle ages.
February 7, 2023
This is a history course with a focus on women's roles and famous women.
There is a lot of talk about sex. Just warning you. Nothing obscene, but it is a subject of discussion. The priest and nuns do not look too good in this context. I knew this was true during this time period and there are reasons for this, but the professor doesn't go into those reasons very much. On the other hand, the professor could have used these facts as a means to beat up on religion, but she manages to avoid that. Just the facts.
Marriage is pretty much a Middle Ages idea. The professor goes through how that developed. It sounded right to me. I have looked into it before. I heard nothing contrary to what I had learned before.
The professor also pointed out that Rousseau was telling mothers how to raise their children while condemning his own children to orphanages. I was already going to give her 4 stars but if I had any doubts before, she certainly bought my well wishes with that little tidbit. Most people don't talk about that.
(FYI, Rousseau didn't even bother naming some of his children before sending them to the orphanage. In those days sending a child to an orphanage was virtually a death sentence. For more information on how ridiculous it was for anyone to listen to Rousseau on child-rearing, read "Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky" by Paul Johnson.)
It wasn't until the Enlightenment that love was considered a good reason for marriage and a lack of love a good reason for divorce.
In the last minute of the course the professor expressed her opinion on marriage, that it is a very flexible idea and that it had to be flexible to have survived to this day. It was a positive message.
I might listen to the audio course again.
There is a lot of talk about sex. Just warning you. Nothing obscene, but it is a subject of discussion. The priest and nuns do not look too good in this context. I knew this was true during this time period and there are reasons for this, but the professor doesn't go into those reasons very much. On the other hand, the professor could have used these facts as a means to beat up on religion, but she manages to avoid that. Just the facts.
Marriage is pretty much a Middle Ages idea. The professor goes through how that developed. It sounded right to me. I have looked into it before. I heard nothing contrary to what I had learned before.
The professor also pointed out that Rousseau was telling mothers how to raise their children while condemning his own children to orphanages. I was already going to give her 4 stars but if I had any doubts before, she certainly bought my well wishes with that little tidbit. Most people don't talk about that.
(FYI, Rousseau didn't even bother naming some of his children before sending them to the orphanage. In those days sending a child to an orphanage was virtually a death sentence. For more information on how ridiculous it was for anyone to listen to Rousseau on child-rearing, read "Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky" by Paul Johnson.)
It wasn't until the Enlightenment that love was considered a good reason for marriage and a lack of love a good reason for divorce.
In the last minute of the course the professor expressed her opinion on marriage, that it is a very flexible idea and that it had to be flexible to have survived to this day. It was a positive message.
I might listen to the audio course again.
October 20, 2021
An enlightening look into marriage and the constructs surrounding love, sex, and marriage beginning in the Middle Ages. Phew, there are some crazy concepts in here! But I really enjoyed this lecturer and the information given is great. It is fair to say that in one point in history sexual assaults, rape, and spousal abuse was rampant (and hopefully we continue to move away from that!) so be aware of that potential trigger.
My favorite lecture was on "Witches, Whores, and Moral Anxiety" -- well researched and a well-thought-out argument on morality.
The Lectures
1. Sex, Love, and Marriage: A Complicated History
2. Christianity and Marriage in the Early Middle Ages
3. Meanings of Marriage in Early Medieval Europe
4. Marriage and Sex on Trial
5. Dangerous Liaisons
6. Spinsters, Bachelors, Widows, and Widowers
7. Sex for Sale
8. Marriage and the Reformation
9. Witches, Whores, and Moral Anxiety
10. Man and Woman at the Threshold of Modernity
My favorite lecture was on "Witches, Whores, and Moral Anxiety" -- well researched and a well-thought-out argument on morality.
The Lectures
1. Sex, Love, and Marriage: A Complicated History
2. Christianity and Marriage in the Early Middle Ages
3. Meanings of Marriage in Early Medieval Europe
4. Marriage and Sex on Trial
5. Dangerous Liaisons
6. Spinsters, Bachelors, Widows, and Widowers
7. Sex for Sale
8. Marriage and the Reformation
9. Witches, Whores, and Moral Anxiety
10. Man and Woman at the Threshold of Modernity
November 18, 2025
Interesting listen, though I suppose there's not much new here for anyone at all familiar with Western history of... uh... any period, really. The church sticks their nose in and does their level best to not let anyone be happy, and women are told to sit down and shut up. The end. Okay, that's an oversimplification. But close enough lol. I think I would personally be more interested in learning about non-Christian practices, and maybe actual wedding traditions and where they came.
June 17, 2025
It's worth listening to because we should all examine these subjects critically and Prof. McNabb is very diverting, however, if you really want to go into these issues in detail you should read Normal Women by Gregory instead.
Here are the main issues I have with this lecture:
1) The course focuses on elites and literature. Yet in these periods most of the population was part of the Third Estate, so how did they marry and love? I find discussions of royalty and popular books to be more anecdotal than descriptive. And if we don't really know, why not say that? It's fun to discuss the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine (what a life!), but what about the life of her subjects? Likewise, a book or tale may be popular in its time, but does it represent the thinking of the population? Does someone 500 years from now looking back understand our views of Sex, Love and Marriage well by reading the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown? It gives something to ponder, but it isn't scientific or verifiable. At best maybe we can say that between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment the Church and the nobility developed traditions and laws concerning sex, love and marriage that became a model for emerging classes of wealthy merchants and other upwardly mobile groups that rose up after the Enlightenment. Yet that is really the best we can do.
2) We can't fully comprehend how religious people living during this time period were nor can we understand how they thought. We are incapable of looking back without looking through our modern eyes. The course supposes there was a discussion of these issues, but there wasn't. There is a clear perspective of marriage that comes from Paul in the New Testament: marriage is good, stay married, the husband and wife have mutual responsibility to each other, and it's not a bad thing to be single because then you can devote all your energy to loving God. So there's that and then there are people falling short of that high bar. Everyone and everything is either good or sinful, people were just as judgmental then as they are now. Remember, almost nobody is being educated to question these issues at this time. As people they lived in ignorance and their simple ignorant view of life is incomprehensible to "modern" people.
Here are the main issues I have with this lecture:
1) The course focuses on elites and literature. Yet in these periods most of the population was part of the Third Estate, so how did they marry and love? I find discussions of royalty and popular books to be more anecdotal than descriptive. And if we don't really know, why not say that? It's fun to discuss the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine (what a life!), but what about the life of her subjects? Likewise, a book or tale may be popular in its time, but does it represent the thinking of the population? Does someone 500 years from now looking back understand our views of Sex, Love and Marriage well by reading the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown? It gives something to ponder, but it isn't scientific or verifiable. At best maybe we can say that between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment the Church and the nobility developed traditions and laws concerning sex, love and marriage that became a model for emerging classes of wealthy merchants and other upwardly mobile groups that rose up after the Enlightenment. Yet that is really the best we can do.
2) We can't fully comprehend how religious people living during this time period were nor can we understand how they thought. We are incapable of looking back without looking through our modern eyes. The course supposes there was a discussion of these issues, but there wasn't. There is a clear perspective of marriage that comes from Paul in the New Testament: marriage is good, stay married, the husband and wife have mutual responsibility to each other, and it's not a bad thing to be single because then you can devote all your energy to loving God. So there's that and then there are people falling short of that high bar. Everyone and everything is either good or sinful, people were just as judgmental then as they are now. Remember, almost nobody is being educated to question these issues at this time. As people they lived in ignorance and their simple ignorant view of life is incomprehensible to "modern" people.
August 24, 2025
Perhaps not truly great but a worthwhile listen. Jen McNabb teaches at the University of Northern Iowa and it’s always good to hear enthusiastic exposition of a specialised subject. And she’s right of course: it took many centuries for modern ideas about sex, love and marriage to emerge. In the meantime women suffered particularly.
June 21, 2022
I'm not sure what I thought about this. It seems to focus on some parts and then briefly mention others and skip past them. If you know nothing about this subject its a good stating point but if you already know about this subject in some depth I would skip past this one.
November 29, 2022
A brilliantly insightful study on love, sex, and marriage in the pre-modern era. I appreciated the thematic division but would have preferred an attempt to look outside a Western European perspective.
Read
January 13, 2025Interesting and well written! But it felt more like a string of facts than a lecture series - the author didn’t form much of a narrative of changes over time, or make any connections between beliefs then and now.
December 16, 2025
No real new info here. The Middle Ages and the Enlightenment people struggled with the same issues that couples and marriages do today. The best info pertained to the way laws and church tried to help these issues, as all European countries operated under a Christian moral structure.
February 18, 2022
Laughably ignorant.
March 27, 2023
Well researched and intriguing.
March 31, 2023
Super interesting information, some new, some old but definitely interesting to see who far we have NOT come along!!
June 22, 2023
3.5 Stars Rounded up
This was more general than I would've liked but quite fun.
This was more general than I would've liked but quite fun.
October 11, 2024
Overall an interesting series of lectures, but rather uneven. It needed a better planning as some parts offer too many details and others are rushed.
January 22, 2025
Enjoyable and informative but not notably so. Worth the listen but just once.
July 13, 2025
I find these course utterly fascinating. I always learn something new.
4 stars
4 stars
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews