Volume 29, Issue 84

For the Christian understanding of marriage, it was constitutive that marriage could be concluded only between one man and one woman. A perspective directed towards bigamy makes it clear that this normative matrix has been called into question not only on a discursive level, but also in practice. Based on bigamy proceedings in early modern Vienna and Lower Austria, the article enquires into the social logics of the couples as well as how the authorities dealt with dual marriages. Serial bigamy resulted mainly from the concept of the indissolubility of marriage as well as from the difficulty of proving the death of the rightful spouse. Three different settings provide insights into different attitudes found in both the religious and secular courts: first, the ecclesiastical handling of bigamous couples in a short period of tolerance in the 1560s and 1570s; second, claims for annulment of marriage or the resumption of legal marriage in the 17th and 18th centuries; and third, a dramatic bigamy trial that was heard in various instances of secular jurisdiction in the 1620s.

In its African colonies, the German colonial authorities of ten encountered marriages among the colonized population that did not correspond to the European bourgeois ideal of monogamous marriage. Colonial government and Christian missions saw polygamy as an obstacle to their colonial or missionary project. Using files from the German colonial administration in Cameroon, documents from the archive of the Basel Mission, and texts from missionary and colonial magazines, the article examines what precisely the colonial government and missions saw as the dangers of polygamy and what challenges arose in dealing with it. Overall, it is shown how essential monogamy was for the self-definition of the German colonial power. Criticism of polygamy served to distinguish Germany from the colonial other and to devalue its culture. Polygamy was considered non-Christian, non-European, non-civilized. In practice, however, this clarity blurred in the face of diverse challenges, so that missions and the colonial government tended to seek pragmatic and temporary solutions.

The creation of Imperial Germany in 1871 sparked a nationwide debate about the nature of marriage and the family. Behind these discussions was a common assumption: families were anchored in monogamous marriage. The assumption was so widely held that it was, with few exceptions, unspoken. It was revealed only in exceptional instances, for example, in confrontation with colonial others, bigamists who were deemed criminals or life reformers living on the fringes of mainstream society. By tapping into a discourse about civilization and human progress, it also linked discussions about the homeland and its overseas Empire. Drawing on a matrix of jurisprudence, social-scientific writings, tracts by social reformers, missionaries and government discussions, this article suggests that Germans embraced monogamy as the tacit rule of marital life within the boundaries of the metropole. Nonetheless, monogamy as a marital standard did not apply consistently within Germany’s overseas colonies. Instead, understandings of racial and religious difference, couched in a specific logic of imperial liberalism, predominated and meant that indigenous people were of ten left to continue their own family practices.

A question that was and remains central to the history of homosexualities is how relationships and sexuality are interlinked. Through discussions around heteronormative relationship norms, the West German gay1 (liberation/rights) movement engaged in heated debates around the question of how sexuality could and should be lived out. This article outlines that debate, starting with the release of Rosa von Praunheim’s film »Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt« (»It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives«; 1971) and proceeding to examine the convulsions of the AIDS crisis. As the debate went on, its focus shif ted from morality to responsibility as the central topic. The increasing visibility of lived sexuality brought about by AIDS and the development of safer sex in reaction to HIV/AIDS in particular contributed to establishing the concept of responsible sexuality. This concept could in turn be positioned against a coupling of relationship and sexuality predicated on moral imperatives.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the Zurich Children’s Hospital (Kispi) developed into an internationally renowned treatment center for »intersexuality.« Children with ambiguous body-sexual characteristics were given there a clearly male or female identification by means of surgical interventions and/or hormone therapies. This study examines the question of how medical and family communication shaped the (narrated) experience of »intersex« treatments. Our analysis is based on nine oral history interviews with former Kispi patients. We show that communication in connection with the treatments was semi-tabooing and directive. We discuss the mode of communication in its social and medical-historical conditions (tabooing of the clitoris and »intersex,« paternalistic relationship between doctors and patients, concealment of »intersex« diagnoses as a doctrine), examine its biographical effects (ignorance of one’s own body, feelings of shame, stigmatization) and address individual processing strategies (breaking taboos, acquisition of knowledge).

In the mid-1970s, the dangers associated with nuclear power moved to the center of risk debates in Germany. Following the reactor accident at Three Mile Island (1979) and the Chernobyl disaster (1986), the West German nuclear industry’s business prospects severely deteriorated. How did the nuclear industry perceive and confront the challenge of nuclear skepticism? And how did this emerging challenge alter the perceived future of nuclear technology in the Federal Republic and beyond? The article argues that the nuclear industry did not passively accept the »depletion of utopian energies« (J. Habermas) to which the peaceful use of the atom was subjected. Instead, the industry worked to create new (utopian) prospects for nuclear power. The industry’s public relations campaign positioned nuclear power in two interrelated fields of insecurity: the decline of industrial society and environmental crises. Both threats, ran the argument put forth by nuclear proponents, could only be combatted by relying on nuclear power for electricity production. In this way, nuclear power was translated into a comprehensive promise of security that was intended to salvage the future of nuclear power as well as that of its investors in the face of growing anti-nuclear sentiment.