Religion and the Drafting of the Saxonian Civil Code
Religion and the Drafting of the Saxonian Civil Code

Summary/Abstract: The materials of the Saxonian Civil Code of 1863/65 reveal an intensive debate about the importance of religion for private law. The Institutes for Legal History at Freiburg and Heidelberg University will fully publish these materials. The drafting of the provisions for matrimonial law shows the substantive influence of the Lutheran Evangelical Church. Large parts of the final version of the matrimonial law in the Saxonian Civil Code were based on the ecclesiastical law of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Civil Code also included special deviations from the Evangelical Lutheran law for Catholics and Jews. The Saxonian lawmaker chose a hybrid solution for matrimonial law: ecclesiastical law in the shell of civilian law. Such a solution was anachronistic since many particular laws in the German Confederacy had already introduced civil marriage to a certain degree. The most outdated Saxonian provision was the prohibition of matrimony between Christians and Jews. The Saxonian Act on Dissidents (1870) and the German Personal Status Act (1875) soon introduced civil marriage also in Saxony and eliminated almost all religious provisions in the Saxonian Civil Code.

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