Sex and Sexuality in Stuart Britain

Peek beneath the bedsheets of Stuart Britain in this frank, informative, and captivating look at the sexual lives of the peoples of the British Isles between 1603 and 1714. Popular Stuart historian Andrea Zuvich, The Seventeenth Century Lady , explores our ancestors’ ingenious, surprising, bizarre, and often entertaining beliefs and solutions to the challenges associated with maintaining a healthy sex life, along with the prevailing attitudes towards male and female sexual behaviour. The author sheds light not only on the saucy love lives of the Royal Stuarts, but also on the dark underbelly of the Stuart era with histories of prostitution, sexual violence, infanticide, and sexual deviance. What was considered sexually attractive in Stuart Britain? At which ages would people be old enough for marriage? What were the penalties for adultery, incest, and fornication? How did Stuart-era peoples deal with infertility, sexually-transmitted illnesses, and child mortality? Find out the answers to these questions - and more - as fashion, food, science, art, medicine, magic, literature, love, politics, faith and superstition of the day are all examined, leaving the reader with a new regard for the ingenuity and character of our seventeenth and early eighteenth-century ancestors. AUTHOR: Author Biography: Andrea Zuvich is a seventeenth-century historian specialising in the House of Stuart (1603-1714), as well as a historical advisor and author of historical fiction. She is the host of the popular The Seventeenth Century Lady’ blog and has degrees in History and Anthropology from the University of Central Florida. Zuvich has appeared on television and radio discussing the Stuart period and gives lectures on the Stuart dynasty throughout the UK.
50 b/w illustrations