“I Beg You Take Me from Here”: Spousal Abandonment and the Experience of Separation in Flight from Persecution

Abstract

Spousal separation and abandonment was prevalent through the medieval and early modern worlds. However, women experienced the traumatic and damaging consequences of these separations far more often than their male counterparts. These instances were only multiplied by the political and social upheaval caused by the Reformation. This article explores this experience for women in the early modern era using Olympia Morata, among others, as windows through which to explore the reasons women were frequently abandoned, the lived reality of experiencing this separation, and the complex religious dynamics of early modern mobility as they related to gender.

Keywords

• spousal abandonment
• spousal separation
• historical trauma
• religious persecution
• Olympia Morata