What Difference Does a Husband Make? Women and Marital Status in Nazi and Postwar Germany (Studies on the History of Society and Culture) [Paperback]

Elizabeth D. Heineman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520239075 | ISBN-13: 978-0520239074 | Publication Date: February 3, 2003 | Edition: 1

In October 1946, seven million more women than men lived in occupied Germany. In this study of unwed, divorced, widowed, and married women at work and at home across three political regimes, Elizabeth Heineman traces the transitions from early National Socialism through the war and on to the consolidation of democracy in the West and communism in the East.
Based on thorough and extensive research in German national and regional archives as well as the archives of the U.S. occupying forces, this pathbreaking book argues that marital status can define women's position and experience as surely as race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Heineman finds that, while the war made the experience of single women a dramatic one, state activity was equally important. As a result, West German women continued to be defined in large part by their marital status. In contrast, by the time of reunification marital status had become far less significant in the lives of East German women.
In one broad, comprehensive sweep, Elizabeth Heineman compares prewar and postwar, East and West, lived experience and public policy. Her sharp analytical insights will enrich our understanding of the history of women in modern Germany and the role of marital status in twentieth-century life worldwide.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Elizabeth Heineman has produced an original and comprehensive work . . . Heineman's complex exploration of the very different ways in which ideology, policy, social experience, and popular memory construct the meaning of marital status makes an important contribution to our knowledge of gender and sexuality in Nazi and post-World War II Germany and will be of interest not only to scholars of twentieth-century Germany but also to those interested in the history of women, family, and social policy in modern industrial societies."--Mary Nolan, Central European History -- Review

From the Inside Flap

"A pathbreaking book. Nothing else attempts the broad sweep or comprehensive vision that Heineman offers in this book."--Robert Moeller, author of Protecting Motherhood

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (February 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520239075
• ISBN-13: 978-0520239074
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #217,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A generation of difference in German women., April 20, 1999

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"nickrostov" - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Difference Does a Husband Make?: Women and Marital Status in Nazi and Postwar Germany (Hardcover)

Elizabeth Heineman's first book improves on her earlier articles describing the hurdles overcoming political resistance to legal acceptance of women and their children. Professor Heineman challenges the assumption that the development of women "standing alone" in the East paralleled their development in the West. Her analysis goes beyond the battle for recognition of their social/sexual lives in the era of the "surplus women" (There were nearly seven million more women than men in Germany in 1946), and considers the effect on marriage of German reunification in 1990. Although married women in both Germanies, within the traditional locus for sexual expression, had eaiser availability to creature comforts, such as homes and apartments, the Christian coalition in power in the West made special efforts to defend the traditional nuclear family. Thus, women in the East grew up believing that women must integrate motherhood with their careers, but in the West the two livestyles were viewed as mutually exclusive. Heineman suggests that the generation of separation has created fundamental difference where sameness is expected, and that the equality created in the East may now be superimposed on the West.