From National Catholicism to Romantic Love: The Politics of Love and Divorce in Franco's Spain

In the early 1970s, when the Franco dictatorship (1939–75) was coming to an end, some Catholic intellectuals began to defend people's right to end their failed marriages and seek happiness with a new partner. In so doing, they recognised that love was the primary purpose of marriage; if it was...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Contemporary European history 2022-02, Vol.31 (1), p.2-14
Main Author: García-Fernández, Mónica
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Catholicism
Church & state
Dictators
Divorce
Emotions
Marriage
Morality
Personal relationships
Politics
Religion
The Contemporary European History Prize
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Summary:In the early 1970s, when the Franco dictatorship (1939–75) was coming to an end, some Catholic intellectuals began to defend people's right to end their failed marriages and seek happiness with a new partner. In so doing, they recognised that love was the primary purpose of marriage; if it was absent the union ceased to be valid. These intellectuals thus broke with a discourse that had until then been deep-seated in both Catholic theology and Francoist morals and laws. According to these, love was only a secondary end of marriage and the conjugal union was indissoluble, leaving people no choice but to tolerate it if it was an unhappy one.
ISSN:0960-7773
1469-2171
DOI:10.1017/S0960777321000515