“Most Marriages Are Unhappy”: From Elsa Asenijeff’s Unschuld (1901) to Today’s Postfeminism

Abstract:This article explores Elsa Asenijeff’s collection of short stories Unschuld: Ein modernes Mädchenbuch (1901; Innocence: A Modern Book for Girls, 2018) in the context of the cultural and societal landscape of Wilhelmine Germany and in relation to contemporary analytical frameworks associated with postfeminism. Asenijeff’s text undermines Mädchenliteratur (literature for girls and young women) as a genre that traditionally regards heterosexual love and marriage as the goals of female adolescent development. By contrast, Unschuld exposes the bourgeois family as a key site where patriarchal power is (re)established and makes visible the realities for women and girls living under patriarchal authority in Wilhelmine Germany. This article places Unschuld into dialogue with core features of postfeminism, among others the (self-)scrutiny of women’s bodies. This transhistorical reading emphasizes the pervasiveness of patriarchal power as well as the imbrication of literature for young women and girls in the production of hegemonic femininity.