This new edition is composed of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century primary, non-fiction texts, written in or translated into English. These sources address Early Modern representations of chastity and adultery, as well as matrimony and its dissolution in both the private and public realms, including the most well known marital dissolution, that of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. The edition will be of value to literary studies, histories of medicine and law, anthropology, sociology, religious studies and art history, women's studies, and cultural studies. "Marriage and its Dissolution in Early Modern England" highlights 'the family as the state in small'. Thus the perceived epidemic of private marital disorder was interpreted as having a tremendous impact on civil stability, a perception furthered by the Tudor monarchs' marital complications.This collection allows for the re-examination of this tension in texts from 1530 to 1652, in sermons, domestic conduct books and religious and social arguments. Sometimes the topic was the complete focus of the text, but at other times, discussions of marital disorder appear in texts with no apparent relation to adultery, chastity, marriage, or its dissolution, an invasion of textual boundaries which testifies to its cultural prominence. These persistent references challenge current arguments that Early Modern divorce was not an option, which may have been legally true.

The four volumes allow for the reproduction of more complete materials than other anthologies on the market. Although some texts are excerpted, the selections are focused on the specific issues of chastity, adultery, marriage and its breakdown, rather than on short passages taken throughout.