Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 31, Number 4 (Winter 2025)

Article Note: García-Fernández, Mónica. “From National Catholicism to Romantic Love: The Politics of Love and Divorce in Franco’s Spain.” Contemporary European History 31, no. 2 (2022): 2–14.

By Martina Cucchiara, Bluffton University

In this prize-winning article, Mónica García-Fernández examines the changing emotional regime of romantic love in marriage in the final phase of Franco’s dictatorship (1939–75). She argues that a shifting discourse on love and marriage that prized happiness and fulfillment had repercussions far beyond the private sphere. Rather, she writes, “the defense of romantic love and divorce went hand-in-hand with a demand for religious freedom, individual rights, the separation of church and state and, ultimately, democracy” (p. 2). This new discourse was so consequential because Continue reading →