SOURCE: Heath, Michael J. “Erasmus and the Laws of Marriage.” In Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Hafniensis: Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Neo-Latin Studies, edited by Rhoda Schnur, Ann Moss, et al., pp. 477-84. Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1994.

In this lecture, originally read at a 1991 conference, Heath discusses Erasmus's controversial proposals for reforming marriage laws and the unorthodox thought behind them. He observes Erasmus's mixed views on women's humanity as well as his then-unusual belief in the value of sexual relationships.

Erasmus published the Christiani matrimonii institutio, dedicated with unforeseeable irony to Catherine of Aragon, in August 1526;¹ it was by no means his first pronouncement on marriage, but it is his most comprehensive discussion of the subject. It also continued and developed Erasmus's polemic with a series of opponents who had taken exception to his Encomium matrimonii (1518) and to his expanded annotation...