The conjugal debt and medieval canon law

Marriage in Western European society was the preserve of the Christian Church throughout the later middle ages. The law of the Church played a significant role in the formation of doctrine concerning that institution, including the sexual relationship of spouses. Adopting a debt-model of conjugal relations, the canonists maintained that each partner owed marital coitus to the other. The lawyers emphasized the mutually binding character of this obligation, and consistently dejended the right of spouses to exact their marital due, insisting that this duty could be abrogated only by mutual consent. As heirs to an ascetic patristic tradition, however, the lawyers tended to be suspicious of fleshly pleasure. A peculiar and ambivalent doctrine resulted from this tension between an appreciation of the intrinsic goodness of the married state and a distrust of sex, one of its major constituents.     

Book reviews—Comptes rendus

Early Europe—L'Europe antique

Maurice SARTRE, L'Asie Mineure et l'Anatolie d'Alexandre à Dioclétien (IVe siècle av. JC—IIIe siècle op. JC), Annand Colin, Collection U, Paris, 1995.

Peter KINGSLEY, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic Empedocles and Pythagorean tradition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995, ix + 422 p., ISBN 0–19–814988–3.

Central and eastern Europe—L'Europe centrale et orientate

Catharina LIS, Jan LUCASSEN & Hugo SOLY eds, Before the Unions: wage earners and collective action in Europe 1300–1850, Cambridge University Press, International Review of History Supplements, Cambridge, 1994,194 p., ISBN 0–521–47954–1.

M.S. ANDERSON, The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740–1748, Longman, London & New York, 1995, xi + 248 p., ISBN 0–582–05951–8.

C.W. INGRAO, ed., State and Society in Early Modern Austria, Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana, 1994, xvi + 339 p., ISBN 1–55753–047–5.

P.W. SCHROEDER, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994, xxii + 894 p,. ISBN 0–19–822119–3.

David E. BARCLAY, Frederick William IV and the Prussian Monarchy 1840–1861, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995, 335 p., ISBN 0–19–820430–2 (German ed., Anarchie und guter Wille. Friedrich Wilhelm IV. und die preussische Monarchic, trartsl. by Marion Müller, Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1995, 535 p., ISBN 3–88680–463–1).

Jörg BABEROWSKI, Autokratie und Justiz. Zum Verhältnis von Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Rückständigkeit im ausgehenden Zarenreieh 1864–1914, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt/M. (Veröffentlichungen des Max‐Planck‐Instituts für Europälsche Rechtsgeschichte, Ius Commune. Sonderhefte, Srudien zur Europäischen Rechtsgeschichte 78), 1996, xi + 845 p., ISBN 3465028325.

La vision de Ian Kershaw sur le pouvoir d'Hitler sur les Allemands. Deux ouvrages novateurs sur le nazisme traduits en français

Ian KERSHAW, L‘opinion allemande sous le nazisme: Bavière 1933–1945, CNRS‐Editions, collection “Histoire du XXe siècle”, Paris, 1995, 160 p.

Ian KERSHAW, Hitler: essai sur le charisme en politique, traduit de l'anglais par Jacqueline Carnaux, Gallimard, collection “NRF essais”, Paris, 1995, 240 p.

The idea of ‘Mitteleuropa’

Joseph ROTHSCHILD, Return to Diversity: a political history of East Central Europe since World War II, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 1993, 299 p., ISBN 0–19–507382–7.

Peter STIRK, ed., Mitteleuropa. History and prospects, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1994, 176 p., ISBN 0–7486–0449–9.

Europe since 1945—L ‘Europe depute 1945

Geoffrey BEST, Law and War since 1945, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994, xiv + 434 p., ISBN 0198219911.

Anne‐Marie DURANTON‐CRABOL, L'Europe de l'extrême droite de 1945 à nos jours, Editions Complexe, Paris, 1991. 222 p.

Themes in cultural history—Etudes d'histoire culturelle

Mario MIEGGE, Il sogno del re di Babilonia, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1995, 210 p., ISBN 88–07–10178‐S.

Reba N. SOFTER, Discipline and Power: the university, history, and the making of an English elite, 1870–1930, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1994, viii + 308 p., ISBN 0–8047–2383–4.

Robert WOHL, A Passion for Wings: aviation and the western imagination, 1908–1918, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1994, vii + 320 p., ISBN 0300057784.     

TWO-EARNER FAMILIES IN THE HOUSING MARKET

The 1970's has been a period in which three trends have coincided: housing prices have been escalating, wives have continued to enter the labor force, and legislation prohibiting discrimination in mortgage markets on the basis of sex and marital status has been enacted. In this paper, we examine the role of the two-earner family–one in which both husband and wife work–in the housing market of the 1970's, and the interrelation of this household type with other factors shaping the current high demand for housing. We also speculate on the role of the two-earner family in the housing market of the 1980's. We conclude that two-earner families are in a position to increase their housing outlays in the future, that the continued growth in the number of two-earner families will add to future housing demand, but that many two-earner families may be divorced couples of the future. This suggests that, while there will be a strong impact on single-family home demand, there will also be some restructuring of demand toward rental housing and cooperative/condominium ownership.     

Book reviews

Australian Books

A. T. Yarwood: Attitudes to Non‐European Immigration (Problems in Australian History), Cassell, Melbourne, 1968, pp. 146, $2.25.

Frank Hardy: The Unlucky Australians, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1968, pp. 249 + index, $4.95 (cloth), $1.95 (paper).

Stanley Brogden: Australia's Two‐Airline Policy, Melbourne University Press, 1968, pp. 235, $5.75.

C. A. Hughes, ed.: Readings in Australian Government, University of Queensland Press, 1968, pp. 504, $6.50.

Jean Spender: Ambassador's Wife, Angus and Robertson. Sydney, 1968, pp. 207, $4.25.

Arthur Huck: The Chinese in Australia, Longmans, Melbourne, 1968, pp. 117, $4.50.

M. Revelman: Sex and Politics in Australia, Publicity Press Books, Adelaide, 1968, pp. 297, $1.35.

J. A. La Nauze, ed.: Alfred Deakin: Federated Australia: Selections from Letters to the Morning Post: 1900–1910, Melbourne University Press, 1968, pp. 314, $7.20.

Overseas Books

Frank Parkin: Middle‐Class Radicalism: The Social Bases of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Melbourne University Press, 1968, pp. 207 + vii, $4.75.

L. J. Sharpe, ed.: Voting in Cities, Macmillan, London, 1968, pp. 340, $8.80.

The Times News Team: The Black Man in Search of Power, Nelson, London, 1968, pp. 174, $4.95.

J. A. A. Stockwin: The Japanese Socialist Party and Neutralism: A Study of a Political Party and its Foreign Policy, Melbourne University Press, 1968, pp. 197 + x, $6.50.

D. A. Low, ed.: Soundings in Modern South Asian History, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1968, pp. 399 + viii, $7.50.

Gwendolen M. Carter, Thomas Karis and Newell M. Stulyz: South Africa's Transkei: The Politics of Domestic Colonialism, London, Heinemann, 1967, pp. 184 + viii, $6.70.