Nina Koefoed:
"Sin and Provision. Sexuality outside Marriage in Denmark 1700-1850"

The article takes its starting point in Danske Lov (1683) and its condition about marriage and looseness. By analyzing the following 150 years of legislation in these fields the author shows how the law is secularized and how the obligation of the absolute monarch towards God and the word of the bible is slackened. As a result of the secularization sexuality outside marriage is decriminalized and becomes part of the private sphere. In regulating sexuality religious values are replaced by an increased social responsibility and a new civil morality. In this new moral agenda, where the social problems of the unmarried mother is considered to be a larger moral problem than her sexual act and its violation of the law of God, there is room for a new attention to the children born outside marriage. The legislative work reveals a new construction in relation to the illegitimate child - that of the loving mother and the providing father.