innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 15,076
Well first we had the fractured state of Germany, which I'd hardly think allowed for any cohesive religious monopole on education.
Then in the 70s of the 19th century, so basically right after unification, Bismark led his so called Culture Wars, in which he not only tried to weaken Socialist movements, but also religious ones. Among other things he successfully pushed for a change of marriage law so to enable purely secular marriages (it's for some reason the only measure I remember).
So I think your temptation has merrit.
Interesting. It would also be interesting to compare when the state took over the function of recording the births and deaths and marriages of its population, in the several european states of that period. In Portugal waited until the Republic, in the years after 1910, to get rid of the catholic church's control over that. I can see it being a good proxy for dating the end of religious control over social life in each country.
I guess that the French did away with it right after their revolution. England was probably kind of a special case, with its state-controlled church.
The other landmark event I'd like to compare was the release of higher education from church control. Here in Portugal I guess I'd have ti put it put it in 1837, with the first copying of french model of the Grande École (in a very small scale ). France had started it the the late-1700s, England was spreading secular colleges (like the Mechanics' Institute of Manchester) throughout the country after the early 1800s and opened the first secular university in 1826.