"The free exercise of religion according to the Catholic faith": Catholic Antenuptial Contracts and the Challenge to American Religious Pluralism, 1890-1960
By the turn of the twentieth century, child custody disputes involving Catholic antenuptial agreements signed before entering into interfaith marriages increasingly found their way into family courts. The agreements sought to protect the religious liberty of the Catholic party and ensure Catholic ba...
| Published in: | US catholic historian |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Soc.
[2018]
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| In: |
US catholic historian
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| RelBib Classification: | KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KBQ North America KDB Roman Catholic Church KDD Protestant Church NCF Sexual ethics XA Law |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | By the turn of the twentieth century, child custody disputes involving Catholic antenuptial agreements signed before entering into interfaith marriages increasingly found their way into family courts. The agreements sought to protect the religious liberty of the Catholic party and ensure Catholic baptism and upbringing of any children born from the marriage. Claiming the religious right to create such contracts and asking judges to give the agreements legal sanction in civil court, the controversy surrounding these agreements pitted the powerful motif of the "contract" in Gilded Age America against the emerging idea of the separation of church and state which - fueled by anti-Catholicism - demanded that the ideal of "religious neutrality" invalidate contracts of a religious nature. Catholic antenuptial agreements forced American courts and culture to reconsider the sometimes conflicting religious freedom of the spouses, children, and the Church. |
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| ISSN: | 1947-8224 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: US catholic historian
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/cht.2018.0025 |