Anette Jensen: The State, the Church and contentious married couples

In Denmark the integrity of marriage was maintained by three institutions: the State, the Church and the general public. However, their concurrent view on marriage disintegrated in the beginning of the 19th Century. It occurred because the State liberalized the access to dissolution of marriage whereas the church fought it and the public made use of the new possibilities. Cases of separation and divorce retrieved from the archives of a conciliation board (1795-1857), give new insights into married life and the role of marriage in the Danish society. This article shows that the liberalization of access to dissolution of marriage opened up a new view on marriage: one where the mutual obligations (sexual and economic) were replaced by a satisfactory married life as the cornerstone for the existence of the institution of marriage.