Love as a Source of Illness in Late Eighteenth-Century Sweden – Examples from the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg

Ina Lindblom

doi:10.1163/2208522x-02010131

Abstract

Abstract Through the analysis of an extensive biographical source material – the life description of Swedish clergyman Pehr Stenberg – this article examines how love was framed as a cause of illness in everyday contexts in late eighteenth-century Sweden. Love was perceived as an emotion that could cause both physical and mental forms of illness. Although lovesickness has been regarded as an illness that could be used by afflicted individuals to communicate emotions, this source material indicates that illnesses caused by love were regarded as actual afflictions. In the framing of these illnesses, conceptions of female fragility were reinforced as love was perceived to have a particularly destabilising power on women.

Highlights

In 1786, while a student of theology in Åbo, young Swede Pehr Stenberg together with some friends went into the forest outside town to look at a hut belonging to a female hermit, locally known as the ‘the forest maid’
Lovesickness has been regarded as an illness that could be used by afflicted individuals to communicate emotions, this source material indicates that illnesses caused by love were regarded as actual afflictions
The main medical theory underpinning the conception of lovesickness was humoral pathology, the theory of bodily fluids initially established by Galen of Pergamum during the second century ce

Summary

Pehr Stenberg and His Life Description

Pehr Stenberg (1758–1824) was born to an impoverished farmer just outside the northern coastal town of Umeå, a town with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. Like most Swedish children of the time, Stenberg was taught to read by his parents.[10] He showed intellectual promise from an early age and after being given permission by the parish to beg for his tuition, Stenberg had the opportunity to become a clergyman through studies at Åbo Academy (in presentday Finland).[11] During his studies, Stenberg first worked as a tutor and later as a house chaplain for aristocratic families in the countryside outside of Åbo.[12] In 1789 he returned home to work as a curate, before being promoted to assistant vicar Unsuccessful in his courtships of women of higher social standing, he married his housekeeper, Elisabeth ‘Lisa’ Ålund. Stenberg’s life description does not give an objective view of everyday life in eighteenth-century Sweden It does give insight into how illnesses were interpreted, how they functioned in social situations and how conceptions of illness were related to contemporary norms – filtered through the voice of Stenberg. Stenberg’s work offers details on lay perceptions of emotion and illness from a wide range of social environments, something that is rarely found in historical sources

Early Modern Views on Lovesickness

Love and Physical Illness in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg

Love and Insanity in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg

Conclusions