Swiss American Historical Society Review
Keywords
Iris von Roten, women authors, romantic partners
Abstract
PART ONE
ASPECTS OF AN IDENTITY
Wilfried Meichtry, Verliebte Feinde, Iris und Peter von Roten. Zurich: Ammann Verlag, 2007
Enamoured Enemies: A Review Essay
He - patrician, Roman-Catholic, conservative and from an influential family of the Upper Valais; she - middle-class, firmly Protestant, progressive, and headstrong. Both strikingly attractive, intelligent and passionate, they were immediately drawn to each other - by their differences as much as by what they shared. The bond that gradually formed between them over six tumultuous years, was strong enough to withstand the strains to which they exposed it. One of its fruits was their daughter Hortensia, born in 1952; another was Iris von Roten's Frauen im Laufgitter (1958), a caustic, minute analysis of women's place in Switzerland during the conservative post-war era. The book caused a heated national debate, antagonizing not just representatives of the traditional male bastion but liberal women and feminist groups as well. In the event, though, it left a mark on Swiss thinking, eventually helping to bring about changes in the country's traditional gender relations.
Recommended Citation
Villiger, Laura
(2008)
"Iris von Roten as Partner,"
Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 44:
No.
2, Article 6.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol44/iss2/6