Sexuality : The puritans were not uptight

Lord high speed, signed in the famous and also by Catherine Deneuve, under the call of some of the French women against #MeToo is of the "Puritanism" of the speech, the chaining of women "like in the good old days of witchcraft" and to make the Victims of the wool. Do such allegations with the historical Puritanism anything at all?

no, because the present-day Puritanism of the image is Essentially a construct of the enlightenment and the 19th century. Century. It was in the 15th century. and 16. Century – i.e. at the time of the puritans – as well as contemporary criticism of the Puritanism. This was due mostly religious. The idea of the puritans of morality and sexuality, it was not. The sexualisation of Puritanism is clearly a phenomenon of the bourgeois age. The witch hunts were only in the context of the 19th century. Century and the enlightenment sexualized so strong. This aspect is not found in the contemporary representation not so much.

What were the criticisms of the Puritanism in the 15./16. Century?

puritans were very anti-Catholic, anti-papistisch you, that it was to clean up the Anglican Church as "Catholic" perceived elements, so the "smells and bells", as it is termed today in Anglicanism: incense, bells, priests, Liturgy of the mass, the splendour of which. All this was in the Calvin puritans counter to the modernist, which is why they have also been criticized by Anglican and Catholic as a religious fanatic, as a kind of Iconoclast. In addition, the puritans were in their criticism of the Anglican state Church automatically in Opposition to the monarchy, and rather on the side of the Parliament. "Purification" is meant, therefore, criticism of the kingship, especially of the house of Stuart, and his katholisiere tendencies within the Anglican high Church.

You criticized but also the strict Calvinism of the puritans . . .

Yes, because they could be quite controlling and virtuous, if there are performances of theatre, dance events, and Listening to secular music. You wanted to know applied first and foremost to the principle of "sola scriptura", so no worldly distractions from the study of the Scriptures and their interpretation allow. At dance events, it was a matter that men and women should not touch each other before marriage – that is, the puritans were relatively rigorous, but they were not more rigorous than all the others. In the Catholic Church, one finds the prohibition of dance events, only the Catholics were mostly too lazy to enforce it.

"the Puritan" was always a dirty word. Why?

The came from high Church Anglican side. The puritans called themselves "saints" and used the term "puritanical" not for themselves, or if they did it, made it not much. Only in the 18th century. and 19. Was century, the term then, really a depreciation, which was associated with the enlightenment in North America where many puritans had emigrated. It was here at the beginning of the 18th century. Century to the first Controversy between the representatives of the early enlightenment and the puritans, they were a power struggle about who has this oligarchic Elite in new England Say. The faithful congregation alists were in Massachusetts and Connecticut, an Elite and held up in the 1820s-1830s into a Form of state kirchentum, what has solidified the image of the oppressive Puritan.

What exactly are the allegations?

you are narrow-minded, backward, you are not enlightened, and basically fanatics. This criticism of the Association then in the 19th century. Century, and increasingly in the 20th century. Century with the image of bound sexuality.

What is not applicable . . .

When it came to questions of sexuality, were the scout much more rigid than the puritans. Everything with regard to intra-marital sexuality, was for the puritans completely okay. Puritans also developed the idea of the companionate marriage, which was in the early modern and relatively progressive, because in pre-modern agricultural societies, there was, in fact, the field next door, the main subject of a wedding was, until then, economically. Like the Catholics and other Christians of this time, it was for the puritans but it is very important that both partners match with each other and also sexual performance to give. There are Ehemanuale of puritans with right hearty instructions, because the female orgasm was necessary for procreation. Only the bourgeois society of the 19th century. Century, denounced the female pleasure, pushing this denunciation, but the puritans in the shoes.

Other worldly pleasures, the puritans were, but still skeptical.

puritans were basically enjoyment be hostile to you, that it was the right dimension, not of chastity or poverty per se. You should leave from the way to salvation not to be distracted, not of drunkenness, gambling or gluttony, but in spite of prosperity. The belief of the right measure coincided in many ways with the reconnaissance aircraft were not Hedonists, but because of the religious justification of the Puritan Purification served goals other.

Why has the image of the prudish Puritan so?

Because it was always handed down in school textbooks, plays, novels. Think of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter". The is treated again and again. And because the real Puritanertum in the early 18th century. Century dissolves, so there is no "real" puritans, can grab the charge of the uptight sexual neurotikers the better. But a lot of things that we call Puritan, have to do with the classic Puritanism.

Puritanism so wrong in such a highly derogatory term?

That depends. The fact that the puritans seeking to cope with the control and strict supervision, have been proven to be wrong with the Sexual hostility, is the term for two items with the self-understanding of the Modern completely incompatible: namely, aspiration to Freedom and sexual Revolution. Of course, puritans have rejected all forms of deviant sexuality, and extramarital intercourse, homosexuality – you could be executed – only: the all the other. Also in the scouts. Therefore, Winkelmann goes to Rome, where he can't be executed - but in Prussia. What we see as a unique characteristic of the puritans, is simply not the case. - Michael high-speed and high - is Professor of North American cultural history, Empirical cultural research and cultural anthropology at LMU Munich. The questions Andrea asked Roedig.