Fight for the Holy Matrimony (Part Two)

Abstract

Since 1783, when the marriage bill introduced by Joseph II legalized civil marriage, marriage legislation had been one of the principal sources of dispute between the Catholic Church and the state and its civil society. In the period preceding the March Revolution the dialog between the Church and the state yielded no palpable results. After the 1855 concordat, the neo-absolutistic regime transferred control over marriage legislation to the Church. With the 1868 May regulation, the second chapter of the 1811 General Civic Code was once again in force, followed by the introduction of the »civil marriage in emergency«. Yet many liberal-minded people voiced the opinion that from the viewpoint of equality before the law certain provisions in the General Civic Code, such as the issue of religious differences and the absolute prohibition of Catholic divorce, were extremely questionable. Since the 1860’s, the demands for marriage reforms, for instance the introduction of compulsory civil marriage and the possibility of Catholic divorce, became more and more pronounced. In the years before to the First World War, they had bloomed into a fierce cultural struggle that resonated also in Slovene lands.