Uncivil Unions : The Metaphysics of Marriage in German Idealism and Romanticism

“What a strange invention marriage is!” wrote Kierkegaard. “Is it the expression of that inexplicable erotic sentiment, that concordant elective affinity of souls, or is it a duty or a partnership . . . or is it a little of all that?” Like Kierkegaard a few decades later, many of Germany’s most influential thinkers at the turn of the eighteenth century wondered about the nature of marriage but rejected the easy answers provided by biology and theology. In __Uncivil Unions__, Adrian Daub presents a truly interdisciplinary look at the story of a generation of philosophers, poets, and intellectuals who turned away from theology, reason, common sense, and empirical observation to provide a purely metaphysical justification of marriage. Through close readings of philosophers like Fichte and Schlegel, and novelists like Sophie Mereau and Jean Paul, Daub charts the development of this new concept of marriage with an insightful blend of philosophy, cultural studies, and theory. The author delves deeply into the lives and work of the romantic and idealist poets and thinkers whose beliefs about marriage continue to shape ideas about gender, marriage, and sex to the present day. Uncivil unions -- The metaphysics of dignity: marriage in Kant and Fichte -- The politics of the copula: love, marriage, and the question of judgment -- "Marriage is the most exalted secret": Novalis on the metaphysics and semiotics of marriage -- Marriage between chaos and product: Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel -- Marriage and mediation: the product among the idealists -- Marriage interrupted: Sophie Mereau's Blüthenalter der Empfindung -- Transcendental masturbators: Jean Paul's Siebenkäs -- The fate of marital autonomy in the nineteenth century -- Epilogue: marriage after metaphysics. In this work, Adrian Daub presents an interdisciplinary look at the story of a generation of philosophers, poets, and intellectuals who turned away from theology, reason, common sense, and empirical observation to provide a purely metaphysical justification of marriage. Discusses the Idealist and Romantic poets and philosophers in Germany in the early 19th century, who thought about marriage differently from their Enlightenment predecessors