"Nem leszen mostoha anya" : Érzelmi gyakorlatok egy 17. századi református lelkész mostohacsaládjaiban = „She will not be a Wicked Stepmother…” : Emotional Practices in the Stepfamily of a Seventeenth-Century Calvinist Pastor

Erdélyi, Gabriella (2018) "Nem leszen mostoha anya" : Érzelmi gyakorlatok egy 17. századi református lelkész mostohacsaládjaiban = „She will not be a Wicked Stepmother…” : Emotional Practices in the Stepfamily of a Seventeenth-Century Calvinist Pastor. TÖRTÉNELMI SZEMLE, 60 (2). pp. 347-364. ISSN 0040-9634

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Abstract

The case study explores the family dynamics of a Lutheran pastor, István Csulyak of Miskolc, who remarried six times in Counter-reformation Habsburg Hungary, through an analysis of his manuscript autobiography and familial correspondence. Serial remarriages were an important tool for the pastor to enhance his masculine identity and social prestige through fulfilling the role of husband and father. The study shows that even though Csulyak devotedly cared for the children brought to his household by his subsequent wives (his stepchildren), they did not appear in the narrative of his life, which was shaped by the concept of patrilineality rather than the daily practice of family life, in which in-laws and other horizontal kin played an essential role. It argues, moreover, that the expectations from, and the emotions, fears and hopes concerning the subsequent wives in the role of stepmother surface in the pastor’s wedding poems, since the dramatization of the remarriage served as a place and occasion for negotiationg the role of the stepmother.

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