Download or read book The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation, and Marriage in Premodern Europe written by A. McClanan and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2002-02-27 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary anthology takes as its starting point the belief that, as the material grounds of lived experience, material culture provides an avenue of historical access to women's lives, extending beyond the reaches of textual evidence. Studies here range from utilitarian tools used in Late Roman abortion to sacred, magical or ritual objects associated with sex, procreation, and marriage in the Renaissance. Together the essays demonstrate the complex relationship between language and object, and explore the ways in which objects become forms of communication in their own right, transmitting both rather specific messages and more generalized social and cultural values.