Wandervogels and Women: Journeymen's Concepts of Masculinity in Early Modern Germany

The early modern period has recently been described as a time of the triumph of patriarchy, patrilineal identity and Protestant domestic ideology. Through legal and institutional changes, the power of the male head of household strengthened. Yet, the male head of household was not the only model of masculinity which developed in the early modern period. Wiesner's article explores alternative models of masculinity, particularly the journeymen, who created their own definition of manhood in opposition to notions of womanhood and to the ideal of manhood proposed by religious and political authorities. Wiesner shows how this alternative definition of manhood was at the same time anti-patriarchal and anti-female.