If you inherit one of these real wood monsters, the first question that arises is whether it is infected with woodworm. Then comes the even bigger problem: Where to put the part if you don’t really go for agrarian romance? Painted rustic furniture – such as slugs, earthenware jugs or turned items – stand for well-in-front-of-the-gate-bourgeoisness. At best, it can be combined with Scandinavian chic or industrial style.
First someone like Thomas Schindler has to come along and open your eyes and the creaking rustic cupboard door to a whole new field of gender research. Namely, Schindler, consultant for folklore at the Bavarian National Museum, poses current, socio-political questions to objects of historical everyday culture, makes the peasant furniture in the collection speak about female self-confidence and gender relations. He not only amazes his students at the LMU, but also the visitors who accompany him through the museum to a four-poster bed from the first half of the 19th century on the tour “Farm furniture and gender? Really now?” on Sunday, August 21, 11 a.m.
According to Schindler, we can think of the owner of that four-poster bed as an emancipated person who knew exactly what she expected from her husband in the bedroom at home. Because in the inscriptions that the young farmer’s wife commissioned from the local carpenter in Geslau in Middle Franconia, her demands on the future husband were unmistakably formulated: “She would like to be a loving, devoted wife, but then comes the comma and the but; only if so her husband is loyal and affectionate – and relatively outspoken – while also satisfying her in bed.”
The patrilocal order of residence at the time wanted the wooden trumm to be transferred to the bridegroom’s home. In Geslau, for example, the four-poster bed was carried across the village, so everyone could read what the bridegroom was about to do. Even later, according to Schindler, the marital lodging was a public matter, as guests were received in the room. The woman brought the furniture with her into the marriage, but it remained her property. The paintings are “a clear demarcation” of ownership and legal relationships, says the folklorist. And the married woman could have the marriage annulled in the event of adultery, impotence or the husband’s inability to father a male heir to the court. A Henry the Eighth case, so to speak, only under the reversed gender sign. And unlike Anne Boleyn, the man – that’s a nice touch – didn’t lose his head, just the farm furniture.