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By Laila Scheuch (Frankfurt am Main)“L’assemblée nationale, considérant combien il importe de faire jouir les français de la faculté du divorce, qui résulte de la liberté individuelle dont un engagement indissoluble serait la perte; […] décrète, qu’il y a urgence.” ((Sammlung der Verordnungen und Beschlüsse erlassen durch den Regierungs-Kommissär in den vier neuen Departementen des linken Rhein-Ufers […]. Vierter Theil: 7tes und 8tes Heft, Straßburg: F. G. Levrault Jahr VII [1798/99], here Heft 7, p. 56. For the original preamble, which is the same, see Décrets et Lois 1789–1795: Collection Baudouin, Vol. 32 (1er–20 Septembre 1792), N° 2076 Décret sur le divorce, http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.30:403.baudouin0314 (27/04/2015). The law was promulgated in the Rhenish departments in 1798 in the same version that was in force in France at the time. Therefore, the text version of the “Sammlung” will be used in the following.))With these words, justifying its revolutionary measure with each individual’s liberty, the French National Assembly introduced in 1792 for the first time in the Early Modern Period the right to secular divorce for all French people. It secularized the means of official conflict regulation for spouses that had been denominationally dominated throughout the Early Modern Era. ((In France, the king exercised legislative power in marital issues and also claimed jurisdiction in marital matters for the state (Hermann Conrad: Die Grundlegung der modernen Zivilehe durch die Französische Revolution, in: Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische Abteilung 67 (1950), p. 336–372, here p. 342–344. Dominique Dessertine: Divorcer à Lyon sous la Révolution et l‘Empire, Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon 1981, p. 22). Legislation was nevertheless based on Catholic concepts and Tridentine marriage law (Dieter Schwab: Grundlagen und Gestalt der staatlichen Ehegesetzgebung in der Neuzeit bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts, Bielefeld: Verlag Ernst und Werner Gieseking 1967, p. 204 and 208). Civil marriage for Protestants was already introduced during the ancien régime (Conrad: Zivilehe, p. 351–353). The Revolutionaries thus enforced a tendency towards secularization of marriage law that can also be observed in other European countries during the second part of the 18th century (Stephan Buchholz: Art. Ehe, in: Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, http://www.hrgdigital.de/HRG.ehe (29.04.2015), p. 1–12, here p. 7. Conrad: Zivilehe, p. 348. Schwab: Ehegesetzgebung, p. 244, 246–247).)) This event is taken as the starting point for an exploration of marital conflicts and their regulation on the left bank of the Rhine (hereinafter referred to as ‘Rhineland’) and France during the late Revolutionary and Napoleonic years (1798–1814). The study seeks to yield results on the perception, (re-)establishment, and maintenance of social order in the area of the family at the onset of modernity, both a time of rapid socio-economic and cultural transformation from corporate to civil society as well as a formative time of the bourgeois family. ((Cf. Siegrid Westphal: Venus und Vulcanus. Einleitende Überlegungen, in: Siegrid Westphal/Inken Schmidt-Voges/Anette Baumann (Eds.): Venus und Vulcanus. Ehen und ihre Konflikte in der Frühen Neuzeit, München: Oldenbourg 2011, p. 9–23, here p. 11.))Work on this doctoral thesis has been carried out at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History since May of 2014 and is situated within the institute’s research focus area ‘conflict regulation’. ((Max Planck Institute for European Legal History: Conflict Regulation, http://www.rg.mpg.de/672223/conflict_regulation (25/04/2015).)) Furthermore, the project is affiliated with the International Max Planck Research School on Retaliation, Mediation, and Punishment; a program for PhD students from social anthropology, sociology, and jurisprudence. The study adds a historical perspective to the school’s research interest in the “relative significance of retaliation, mediation and punishment in establishing and maintaining social order”. ((International Max Planck Research School on Retaliation, Mediation, Punishment: Research Focus, http://www.remep.mpg.de/about/scope (25/04/2015).))Subject MatterThe right to divorce was an exceptional law in light of its extreme liberalism, individualism and “antichurch sentiment”, yet not an exceptional case of legislation in the sense that it is situated within an array of family laws and decrees between 1789 and 1794. ((Roderick Phillips: Putting Asunder. A History of Divorce in Western Society, Cambridge [et al.]: Cambridge University Press 1988, p. 189–190. Suzanne Desan: The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press 2004, p. 249–250. Also cf. the list of family laws and decrees ibid. p. 325–331.)) This array, in turn, was a specific manifestation of a “vigorous public debate over marriage,” which gained its political sensitivity from the contemporary idea that the family was a mirror of state and society as a whole. ((Ibid., p. 2 and p. 15–16.)) The significance of these legal regulations lies in the political attempt to redefine and newly constitute the moral foundations and objectives of everyday marriage and family life. The governing principles behind many of these laws and decrees, at the time of their promulgation, were to foster liberty and equality as well as to render interpersonal relations more caring. ((Ibid., p. 1–2. Suzanne Desan: The French Revolution and the Family, in: Peter McPhee (Ed.): A Companion to the French Revolution, Malden [et al.]: Wiley-Blackwell 2013, p. 470–485, here p. 470. Jean-Philippe Lévy: Conclusion. L’évolution du droit familial français de 1789 au Code Napoléon, in: Irène Théry/Christian Biet (Eds.): La famille, la loi, l’état de la Révolution au Code civil, [Paris]: Centre Georges Pompidou 1989, p. 507–513, here p. 508.)) Other characteristic features common to many of the legal regulations concerning family and sexuality at their initial stage are decriminalization and secularization. ((For the decriminalizing tendency concerning ancien régimesexual crimes and offences see Angela Taeger/Michael Schetsche: Moralmodelle des 19. Jahrhunderts und ihr Einfluß auf das französische und deutsche Strafrecht, in: Detlev Frehsee/Gabi Löschper/Karl F. Schumann: Strafrecht, soziale Kontrolle, soziale Disziplinierung, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 1993, p. 281–295, here p. 287–289.))The divorce law of 1792 displays all of these features. Public discourse on divorce had already begun during the late 1760s; during the first years of the Revolution (1789–1792) it peaked with numerous publications dealing with divorce. The crucial foundation of all pro-divorce arguments was the conception of marriage as a civil contract. ((See for the public discourse Desan: Family on Trial (fn. 6), p. 17–25. Dessertine: Lyon (fn. 2), p. 33–42. Phillips: History of Divorce (fn. 6), p. 165–75. See for ‘marriage as a contract’ Conrad: Zivilehe (fn. 2), p. 346–347.)) Thinking marriage as a contract, which implies that it can be dissolved, meant a break with the traditional Catholic idea of marriage as an indissoluble union of man and woman endowed with sacramental dignity. ((F[riedrich] Merzbacher: Ehe, kirchenrechtlich (matrimonium, coniugium), in: Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (1), Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 1971, c. 833–836, here c. 833.)) Correspondingly, the first step to the introduction of divorce was the recognition of marriage as a civil contract in the Constitution of 1791. ((Conrad: Zivilehe (fn. 2), p. 355.)) This principle was then realized with the divorce law of 20 September 1792. ((Ibid.)) Both the grounds, which could be put forward as a reason for divorce, and the procedural regulations illustrate the intention of the legislator to bring liberty and equality to marital conflict regulation. Women and men could choose without any differences from a far-ranging catalogue of eight grounds, including “incompatibility of disposition or character” (Law of 20 September 1792, section 1, art. 3) or “crimes, cruelties, or rude insults” of one against the other (s. 1, art. 4). ((All translations are the author’s except where otherwise noted. Additionally, a separation of bed and board that had been acquired during the ancien régime could be transformed into a divorce (Law of 20 September 1792, s. 1, art. 5).)) Consensual divorce was also an option (s. 1, art. 2). The proceedings, too, made no distinction between a man and a woman seeking a divorce. ((There were gender differences in regard to remarriage, however, which were added in 1793 (Dessertine: Lyon [fn. 2], p. 71–72).)) Distinctive features were the important role assigned to largely self-governed mediation procedures at the grassroots level of family and friends, and the intended unproblematic availability of judgements that could be used for a divorce. In the case of consent or incompatibility, for example, the divorce-willing spouse(s) had to summon a “family assembly” consisting of at least six or three relatives and/or friends that had to meet one to three times respectively (s. 2, art. 1, 4, 9, and 12). The assembly was supposed to attempt a reconciliation of the spouses in case of incompatibility or to “make those remarks and suggestions, which they will consider appropriate for the cause” in case of consent (s. 2, art. 4 and 10). The role of the state, in the form of its municipal officers, was limited to administrative tasks, such as documenting that the required session(s) had taken place (s. 2, art. 4 and 10). The officers were explicitly not allowed to intervene in the matter itself (s. 2, art. 5, 10, and 16). In regard to the other grounds, the spouse intending to divorce was generally asked to possess or obtain a judgement from a tribunal de famille, an arbitration instance, or, as of February 1796, from an ordinary court. ((Jean-Claude Monier: Notes sur les caractères de la procédure civile dans la période 1789–1804, in: Irène Théry/Christian Biet: La famille, la loi, l’état de la Révolution au Code civil, [Paris]: Centre Georges Pompidou 1989, p. 305–311, here p. 306. Dessertine: Lyon (fn. 2), p. 73.)) Since the court system was changed and civil procedural law simplified in 1790 and 1793, the legislators do not seem to have intended to place any obstacles in the way of spouses choosing one of these grounds. ((Monier: Procédure civile (fn. 16), p. 305–306.f))The Revolutionary divorce law was abolished with the introduction of the divorce law of the Code civil on 10 Germinal XI (31/03/1803). ((Dessertine: Lyon (fn. 2), p. 75. Cf. Céline Pauthier: Les origines du Code civil, in: Claude Witz (Ed.): Le Bicentenaire du Code civil – 200 Jahre Code civil, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2006, p. 25–38, here p. 32.)) While the idea continued to persist that the family (constituted by marriage) was indicative of state and society as a whole and, therefore, was considered as an important field of legislation for ordering society, the guiding political and socio-cultural ideas altered from the Revolutionary to the Napoleonic legislation. In the overall framework of the Napoleonic policy of national consolidation, the authors of the Code civil sought to maintain marriages as their societal importance came to be valued more highly than the individual’s liberty to decide on ending a marital union. ((See for ‚policy of consolidation‘ Pauthier: Origines (fn. 18), p. 33 and p. 36. Werner Schubert: Französisches Recht in Deutschland zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts. Zivilrecht, Gerichtsverfassungsrecht und Zivilprozessrecht, Köln/Wien: Böhlau 1977, p. 29. For the shift in values see the considerations of one of the authors of the Code civil: Jean-Étienne-Marie Portalis: Discours préliminaire du premier projet de Code civil, digitalised by Claude Ovtcharenko 2007, http://classiques.uqac.ca/collection_documents/portalis/discours_1er_code_civil/discours.html (09/01/2014), p. 35–46 as well as Elmar Wadle: Vom französischen zum rheinischen Recht. Recht als Instrument und Indikator politisch-sozialen Wandels, in: Elmar Wadle: Französisches Recht in Deutschland. Acht Beiträge zur Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Köln [et al.]: Heymanns 2002, p. 19–39, here p. 36.)) The grounds and proceedings of the divorce law were designed accordingly. ((The final legislation on divorce is slightly more liberal than the suggestions of Portalis in the Discours (cf. Code civil 1804, Tit. VI and Portalis: Discours [fn. 19], p. 35–46).)) The grounds for divorce were not only reduced to just three (besides consent of the spouses), they were also modified. For instance, adultery was taken up as a ground for divorce. Adultery was neither mentioned in the divorce law of 1792, nor was it listed as a crime or an offense in the Code pénal of 1791 indicating a decriminalization of this ancien régime crime during the Revolution. ((Michèle Bordeaux: Le maître et l’infidèle. Des relations personelles entre mari et femme de l’ancien droit au Code civil, in: Irène Théry/Christian Biet: La famille, la loi, l’état de la Révolution au Code civil, [Paris]: Centre Georges Pompidou 1989, p. 432–446, here p. 438.)) The Code civil effected a legal re-criminalization of adultery, which took up pre-Revolutionary notions surrounding it, e.g., by incorporating discriminatory regulations for adulterous men and women. ((Ibid., p. 436 and p. 439–440.)) Among these was the obligatory punishment of imprisonment in a house of correction only for adulterous women (Code civil, art. 298). ((Code civil des Français. Édition originale et seule officielle. Paris: L’Imprimerie de la Republique 1804.)) Additionally, the modes of conflict regulation prescribed by the divorce law were substantially altered. The proceedings were entirely transferred to the civil courts and, hence, to the state, i.e., from the ‘private’ to the ‘public’ sphere. The “moral decay”, as Portalis saw it, which had supposedly been supported by the family assemblies, was to be put to an end. ((Portalis: Discours (fn. 19), p. 44–46.)) The renewed significance of the jurisdiction in marital conflict regulation was underlined by a reassignment of the role of the mediator from the family assemblies to the judge. The judge’s task in divorce proceedings was repeatedly and via various means, e.g., a special session for remarks to conciliate the spouses (art. 239) or decreeing a “year of probation” (art. 259, 260), to reconcile the couple. The procedural regulations were complex and thus susceptible to protract divorce processes or even let them fail. ((Just one example of many, the law mostly did not prescribe time limits between the four to six court sessions in unilateral divorce proceedings that thus lay in the scope of action of the judge to decide (cf. Code civil [fn. 23], art. 236, 238, 245, 252, and 256).))The divorce law of the Code was, consequently, a conservative and patriarchal law, especially in comparison with the law of 1792. Nevertheless, the Code also clearly followed the work of the Revolution as the secularization of family law was maintained. ((Dirk Blasius: Ehescheidung in Deutschland 1794–1945, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&#38;Ruprecht 1987, p. 33. Schwab: Ehegesetzgebung (fn. 2), p. 220–221. Wadle: Zum rheinischen Recht (fn. 19), p. 36.)) Significantly, in the course of the integration of the left bank of the Rhine into the French state after the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, the French divorce law of 1792 was introduced into the former German territory in May 1798. ((Sammlung der Verordnungen und Beschlüsse (fn. 1), here Heft 7, p. 14.)) The inhabitants of the left bank were confronted with a foreign law that radically broke with customary, Church-influenced forms of marital conflict regulation. ((Cf. Wadle: Zum rheinischen Recht (fn. 19), p. 35. Count Wilhelm Karl of Leiningen-Billigheim, for example, used the terming “fremd[e] Gesetz[e]” in his attempt to convince the Imperial Diet of the injustice of his divorce (Landesarchiv Speyer: Bestand V 203, Nr. 9).)) Corresponding to the legal equalization of the Rhineland with inner-France in September 1802, the divorce law of the Code civil was promulgated at the same time as in France replacing the Revolutionary law. ((Rainer Ortlepp: Die französische Verwaltungsorganisation in den besetzten linksrheinischen Gebieten 1797–1814 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Departements Donnersberg, in: Alois Gerlich (Ed.): Vom Alten Reich zu neuer Staatlichkeit. Kontinuität und Wandel im Gefolge der Französischen Revolution am Mittelrhein, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, p. 132–151, here p. 139.)) With the occupation of the left bank by the allied troops in January 1814, the French control of the Rhine came to an end. ((Heinz-Günther Borck (Ed.): 200 Jahre Code civil im Rheinland. Eine Ausstellung der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Landesarchiv Saarbrücken und den Oberlandesgerichten Koblenz und Zweibrücken (Ausstellungskatalog), Koblenz: Verlag der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz 2005, p. 104.)) The PhD project, hence, focuses on the period 1798 to 1814, the time when the formerly German parts of the Holy Roman Empire on the left bank of the Rhine with different legal and political outsets constituted a unity insofar as that they were subjected to certain Revolutionary and Napoleonic legal, judicial, and administrative developments. With regard to inner-France, the beginning of this period is, for obvious reasons, less sensible. For reasons of more profound historical understanding, therefore, these temporal boundaries are not strictly maintained, but rather are permeable to probing both before and after when appropriate.State of Research and Historiographical ApproachesSince the early 1990s works, dealing with the practical side of marital conflict regulation in territories and successor territories and states of the Holy Roman Empire during the Early and Late Modern Era have been steadily published. ((Writings that are concerned with the legal foundations are abundant both in the German and French literature (cf. for instance the small bibliography in Roderick Phillips: Family Breakdown in Late Eighteenth-Century France. Divorces in Rouen 1792–1803, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1980, p. 208, fn. 4). A pioneering work is Blasius: Ehescheidung (fn. 26) from 1987. Cf. Ellinor Forster/Margareth Lanzinger: Stationen einer Ehe. Forschungsüberblick, in: L’Homme. Zeitschrift für Feministische Geschichtswissenschaft 14,1 (2003), p. 141–155 and Siegrid Westphal: Die Auflösung ehelicher Beziehungen in der Frühen Neuzeit, in: Siegrid Westphal/Inken Schmidt-Voges/Anette Baumann (Eds.): Venus und Vulcanus. Ehen und ihre Konflikte in der Frühen Neuzeit, München: Oldenbourg 2011, p. 163–236, here p. 172–179.)) Parts of the Rhineland have come into focus through the work of Blasius dealing with Prussia (Rhine Province) and an article by May analyzing separations of bed and board in the archdiocese of Mainz. ((Blasius: Ehescheidung (fn. 26). Georg May: Die Aufhebung der ehelichen Lebensgemeinschaft in der Erzdiözese Mainz während des 18. Jahrhunderts nach den Protokollen des Generalvikariats, in: Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 84 (1998), p. 470–549.)) The conflicts have often been used to find out about the social reality of wedlock. ((Forster/Lanzinger: Stationen (fn. 31), p. 152.)) More recent works are increasingly oriented toward (new) cultural historical issues. ((Westphal: Auflösung (fn. 31), p. 174.)) In regard to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic divorce laws, studies concerning the practice of the Revolutionary and, more rarely, the Napoleonic divorce law in France peaked in the early 1980s with two comprehensive works on divorce in Rouen and Lyon as well as a smaller one on divorce in the Lorraine region. ((Dessertine: Lyon (fn. 2). Jean Lhote: Une anticipation sociale. Le divorce à Metz et en Moselle sous la Révolution et l’Empire, Metz: 1981. Phillips: Rouen (fn. 31). The Lorraine region has also been investigated by Marie-José Laperche-Fournel: Les divorcés de l’an II (à Nancy, Metz et Verdun), in: Annales de l’Est 4 (1993), p. 245–263. Suzanne Desan has more recently dealt with revolutionary divorce in the Calvados (Desan: Family on Trial [fn. 6], p. 93–140).)) These are by and large socio-historical studies. The practice of the Revolutionary divorce law in the Rhenish departments has been the subject of two articles focusing on Koblenz and Saarbrücken respectively. ((Wolfgang Hans Stein: Französisches Scheidungsrecht im katholischen Rheinland (1798–1803). Eine unbemerkte Revolution, in: Pirmin Spieß (Ed.): Palatia Historica. Festschrift für Ludwig Anton Doll zum 75. Geburtstag, Mainz: Selbstverlag der Gesellschaft für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte 1994, p. 463–488. Elmar Wadle: Ehescheidung vor dem Standesbeamten. Das revolutionäre Scheidungsrecht und seine Praxis in Saarbrücken, in: Wolfgang Haubrichs/Wolfgang Laufer/Reinhard Schneider (Eds.): Zwischen Saar und Mosel. Festschrift für Hans-Walter Hermann zum 65. Geburtstag, Saarbrücken: SDV 1995, p. 291–302.)) Both concentrate on those kinds of divorces run by the register office of the municipality. Consequently, although an already impressive corpus of studies in marital conflict regulation exists, the project fills a research gap in terms of area, time, sources and legal basis as well as the approach to the subject, for it combines the approaches of social, (new) cultural and legal history. ((The history of civil jurisdiction, especially regarding deviance research, still presents a “largely untreated field” (Gerd Schwerhoff: Historische Kriminalitätsforschung, Frankfurt: Campus 2011, p. 73).)) Social and cultural history are represented by using their specific methods and outlooks, such as quantitative and hermeneutic, structure and perception respectively. ((This is of course a somewhat exaggerating differentiation using ideal-typical conceptions of the two approaches. Cf. Stefan Jordan: Theorien und Methoden der Geschichtswissenschaft, Paderborn: Schöningh 2009, esp. p. 122 and p. 212–213.)) Legal historical approaches are informed by historical research on criminality, which provides important concepts to grasp ‘what is going on’ with regard to processes of social order, such as deviance, social control and the labeling-approach. ((Schwerhoff: Kriminalitätsforschung (fn. 37), p. 10–11 and p. 35–37.)) To advance the subject from these perspectives draws attention to the interplay between notions and norms of social and sexual deviance, which can boil down to legal regulations breaching the allegedly stable distinction between civil and criminal law in the Late Modern Era as the treatment of adultery in the Code civil proves. ((Cf. ibid., p. 73.)) It, thus, underlines how more general results on the nature of change between the Early and Late Modern Period can be acquired by studying marital conflict regulation of the time.Research QuestionsStarting from these considerations, the research project is looking, from the overall viewpoint of social ordering through the lenses of culture, deviance, and gender, at marital conflict regulation. Thereby, the shift from Revolutionary to Napoleonic divorce law is always kept in mind.How was the right to secular divorce received, i.e., used and perceived; to what extent was the practice of divorce accepted, and to what extent was it considered to be socially deviant behavior?This question is mainly approached from the perspective of practice rather than discourse. It is taken as a basic assumption that the usage of a law provides some information about its acceptance, and, more specifically, that the usage of divorce laws can elucidate the extent to which people were willing to embrace the ideas regarding families expressed in them. Therefore, a sociological profile of the users of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic divorce laws will be created, which will be sustained by a careful interpretation of the remaining ‘remarks’ made by people involved in divorce proceedings. An analysis of public opinion as it expressed itself, for example, in the contemporary media might be included.What kind of social practices were employed to deal with divorces and/or the underlying conflicts between husbands and wives?Three intertwined threads of analysis are taken into account for answering this question. The first is time, i.e., the temporal development of a conflict. The second concerns the actors, who participated in various functions and on various levels of society: legislators, judges, other judicial and administrative staff, lawyers and notaries, litigants and defendants, family members, and friends. The third are the practices chosen by the actors, such as mediation, punishment, retaliation, and/or coping measures.How did gender and culture influence the whole complex of marital conflict regulation during the transitional period between Early and Late Modern Period?‘Culture’ and ‘gender’ are hypothesized as constituting structural categories with regard to marital conflict regulation. ((The term ‘culture’ is used according to the understanding which prevails in the new cultural history (cf. Achim Landwehr: Kulturgeschichte, Stuttgart: Ulmer 2009, p. 12).)) In view of gender, the right to divorce has been regarded time and again as a means to influence gender relations. ((Cf. e.g. Dessertine: Lyon (fn. 2), p. 39–40. Phillips: History of Divorce (fn. 6), p. 171–172.)) Through the rate of women demanding divorce, a gender-specific analysis of the grounds for divorce as well as of attitudes prevailing in legislation, administration, and justice, the question of whether there are gender-specific usages, perceptions, and strategies can be approached. Considering the different situations in France and the German regions when the right to divorce was introduced respectively, the cultural perspective allows to ask about cultural specifics between French and German users as well as about processes of cultural and legal translation. Was, for example, the right to divorce ‘purely’ implemented by the responsible institutions in the Rhenish departments, or can certain adjustments of the foreign law be observed?Sources and MethodologyIn order to answer these questions the project consults a variety of sources. These are intricately linked to the design of the project, a comparative study, which is comprised of six case studies. In the case studies, the four chef-lieus (capital cities) of the Rhenish departments – Mainz, Koblenz, Trier, and Aachen – as well as two French towns are examined applying qualitative as well as quantitative methods. ((The French towns still have to be selected. These are the chef-lieus of the departments of Donnersberg, Rhine and Moselle, Saar, and Roer.)) For each town, the relevant civil status registers, civil court records, family archives and divorce dossiers are investigated. The category ‘civil status registers’, for instance, consists of two kinds of sources: marriage and divorce registers as well as registers of notice of intended marriages and divorces. While the former offers marriage and divorce certificates providing sociological data, the latter can include documents that were prepared during a divorce, such as the written demand of a divorce-willing spouse to the administration in order to determine the date and time of the family assembly. ((An example can be found in Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz: Bestand 656,045, Nr. 3.)) They inform not only about the course of a divorce, but also about the arguments and norms people considered appropriate and helpful in achieving their objective. The laws as well as discursive, judicial and administrative sources surrounding their development and implementation provide the essential background for the research questions. As the time limits, to a certain degree, are considered to be permeable, selected cases reaching further back in time, will also be explored, e.g., tracing a divorce case that began as a separation under the Old Regime to its beginnings. ((An example can be found in Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz: Bestand 316,003, Nr. 19, N° 25.)) This possibly clarifies the differences and changes in marital conflict regulation from one legal, political, and socio-economic setting to the other.Printversion: Frühneuzeit-Info 26, 2015, S. 228-233.