Historical View on Marriage

When someone says the word marriage today we reckon about two people who are in like and who want to spend the rest of their lives with each other. Marriage is a serious commitment, one that isn’t taken lightly for most people. One wouldn’t likely marry a weirder they just met for instance. In the Medieval Times, but, marriage was quite different. Women didn’t have a choice as to who they would marry. Most of the time they didn’t even know the man before they were married. Marriage was different in other ways back then too. There were many reasons a marriage could not take place, and strict rules for whether or not a divorce was allowed. Despite the differences in various aspects of marriage, the marriage ceremony has stayed rather similar over the years. We also carry on some of the same traditions in today’s society.

In the middle ages marriages were done by arrangement. Women were not allowed to choose who they wanted to marry. But, sometimes men were able to choose their bride. Marriage was not based on like. Husbands and wives were generally strangers until they first met. If like was involved at all it came after the couple had been married. Even if like did not develop through marriage, the couple generally developed a friendship of some sort. The arrangement of marriage was done by the children’s parents. In the Middle Ages children were married at a young age. Girls were as young as 12 when they married, and boys as young as 17. The arrangement of the marriage was based on monetary worth. The family of the girl who was to be married gives a dowry,or donation, to the boy she is to marry. The dowry goes with her at the time of the marriage and stays with the boy forever (Renolds).

After the marriage was arranged a wedding notice was posted on the door of the church. The notice was place up to ensure that there were no grounds for prohibiting the marriage. The notice stated who was to be married, and if anyone knew any reasons the two could not marry they were to come forward with the reason. If the reason were a valid one the wedding would be prohibited (Rice).

There were many reasons for prohibiting a marriage. One reason was consanguinity, if the two were too closely related. If the boy or the girl had taken a monastic or religious vow the marriage was also prohibited. Sometimes widows or widowers took vows of celibacy on the death of their spouse, and later regretted doing so when they could not remarry. Other reasons which also prohibited marriage, but were not grounds for a divorce, were rape, adultery, and incest. A couple could also not be married during a time of fasting, such as lent or advent. Nor could a couple be married by someone who had killed someone (Rice).

The church ceremony in the middle ages took place outside the church door before entering the church for a nuptial mass. During the ceremony in front of the church doors the man stood on the right side and the woman stood on the left side, facing the door of the church. “The reason being that she was formed out of a rib in the left side of Adam (Amt, p.84).” The priest starts by asking if anyone knows of any reason the couple should not be married. He also questions this of the man and woman so they may confess any reasons for prohibiting their marriage (Amt, p.84).

The ceremony proceeds with the priest saying, “N[ame] wilt though have this woman to thy wedded wife, wilt the like her, and honor her, keep her and guard her, in health and in sickness, as a husband should a wife, and forsaking all others on account of her, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live? (Amt, p.84)” Then the priest, changing the wording of “as a husband should a wife”, questions the same of the woman. Both the man and the woman should answer by saying “I will (Amt, p.84-5).” At this time the woman is given by her father. The wedding continues with the saying of vows. Both the man and the woman, with the exception of the words wife and husband, say, “I N. take thee N. to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, till death do us part, if the holy church will ordain it: And thereto I plight thee my troth (Amt, p. 85).” At this time the are given to the priest to bless them. He gives them back and the ring exchange occurs. They bow their heads and the priest gives them a blessing. As husband and wife they enter the church, where they kneel before the altar. At the altar the priest gives a prayer and a blessing, thus ending the marriage ceremony (Amt, p.85).

Many of the things that took place during the time of a wedding have become traditions, and are currently practiced today. The marriage ceremony, for example, contains much of the same wording as was used in the middle ages. Today, the man and the woman stand on the same sides of the altar as they did in the middle ages. The wedding ceremony of today also includes a ring exchange, and the ring is place on the fourth finger, the same finger it was placed on during the middle ages. Even nuns marrying the church wore a ring on their fourth finger. In the middle ages a couple and their families would have a large feast after the wedding, this is still carried on in today’s society (Rice).

One advantage we have today is the acceptance of divorce. People today can get divorced for practically any reason. In the middle ages there were few reasons the wedding could be dissolved. One reason was if either the man or woman were not of legal age, 12 for girls and 14 for boys. If the husband or wife had previously made a religious or monastic vow or were not Christian, the marriage would be dissolved. The last reason a marriage could end was if the woman, not the man, was incapable of sexual relations (Rice).

Marriages in the middle ages were done by arrangement. Most of the time the man and women did not know each other prior to their wedding. The marriage involved a dowry, and a ceremony beginning at the chute door and proceeding into the church. After the couple were married there were few reasons for divorce which were strictly adhered to. Over time marriages have carried on similar traditions and have also changed to involve the man and woman in deciding who they want to marry, and most importantly: LOVE.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amt, Emilie. Women’s Lives in Medieval Europe.New York, Routledge:1993

(Click here to go to huge section on Medieval, Celtic & Norse marriage ceremonies, handfasting, law of marriage etc…)
(TOP OF PAGE) GO BACK TO CEREMONIES)
(GO BACK TO HOME PAGE)

Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe

“Jesus said remarkably small about sexual conduct, and sex was not a central issue in his moral teaching. But Jesus’ followers during the first four or five generations after his death were far more concerned about sexual morality than Jesus himself had been.”

“Despite claims to the contrary, Christian sexual ethics have been neither uniform nor static.”

“Three major patterns of sexual doctrine underlie the diverse beliefs about sexual morality that have been current in Western Christendom since the patristic period. One pattern centered on the reproductive function of sex and established nature and the natural as the criterion of what was licit; the second focused on the notion that sex was impure, a source of shame and defilement; the third emphasized sexual relations as a source of intimacy, as a symbol and expression of conjugal like. Medieval writers placed greater emphasis upon the first two patters, but at various times prior to the Reformation, and in many segments of Christian society since then, all three approaches and the consequences deduced from them have been held and taught in various combinations.”

“Married couples among the Roman elite lived in a social system in which the family, as modern societies reckon of it, did not exist. The Roman familia meant a household, not a family in the modern sense, and households came in a fantastic variety of sizes and shapes. Among the wealthy and powerful, the household often numbered hundreds of persons and things: children, servants, slaves, livestock, and other property were all part of the familia, although his wife and children were members of it and, like the servants, and slaves, oxen and geese, and the rest of the familia, they belonged to the paterfamilia. Among the poor, but, households were apparently small, since they included no slaves or servants and small property. The familia of the humble often consisted simply of a woman and her children. Again, the male head of household was not part of his own familia.”

“Paul’s treatment both of illicit sex outside of marriage (porneia) and of marital sex itself was influenced by his conviction that the end of the world was imminent.”

“The fantastic Biblical exegete, Origen (ca. A.D. 185-253/55), and the anonymous author of the Gnostic Gospels according to the Egyptians, for example, believed that Adam and Eve had been innocent of sexual temptation or even sexual feelings in Paradise.”

“Few early patristic writers bothered to account for the dislike and revulsion that characterized their treatment of sex. They plainly felt that no explanation was required, that sex was so filthy and degrading that the reason for condemnation of it was self-evident.”

“Marriages of the clergy posed special problems for Christian authorities. Although a few early writers expressed a preference that clerics not marry at all, nearly every third-century Christian clergyman whose marital status is known seems to have been married. The first effort to prohibit clerical marriage appeared in the canons of Elvira in the early fourth century.”

“Augustine and his contemporaries among the Fathers considered sex a grave moral danger in part because they believed that sexual feelings and urges, particularly the reactions of the genital organs, were not fully under the control of the human will.”

According to Augustine, “Prior to the Fall sexual organs had been under conscious control; but just as our first parents rebelled against God, so after the Fall our genitals rebelled against our will. Humans then became incapable of controlling either their sexual desires or the physical reactions of their gonads.”

“He ["St." Jerome] also furnished generations of misogynist writers with a battery of elegant vituperation and ferocious mockery directed against the foibles and follies of women.

Patristic discussions of the place of sex in the Christian life are shot through with a fundamental ambivalence about the place of women in the scheme of salvation. Augustine agreed clearly and emphatically with other patristic writers in requiring that men observe the same norms of sexual conduct as women. At the same time, but, Augustine, like other patristic authors, considered women frankly inferior to men, both physically and morally.

. . . “I fail to see what use woman can be to man,” Augustine said, “if one excludes the function of bearing children.” ”

“Cassian and others elaborated schemes of discipline to ward off perilous sexual impulses. These plans regulated diet, clothing, social contacts, sleeping habits, posture, and other aspects of daily living with the aim of eliminating physical, mental, or emotional stimuli that might trigger responses and sexual desires. . . .

The one means of fighting off sexual temptations at which practically all authorities drew the line was castration. Although one or tow extremists – Origen was the best known – had advocated and even practiced this radical method of combating sexual temptation, orthodox opinion held that this solution carried a excellent thing too far. Both the so-called Canons of the Apostles and the genuine canons of the Council of Nicaea (325) prohibited the practice.”

“Patristic writers assumed, as Roman law did, that consent made marriage. They rejected the notion that consummation was an essential part of marriage. It made no difference whether a couple ever went to bed together; so long as they consented to marry one another, that was what counted. If consummation was not essential, it might follow that sexual impotence constituted no reason for holding a marriage invalid, and Augustine at any rate seems to have subscribed to this view.

Christian authorities warned married couples that they should have sex only for proper reasons. Augustine pointed to the Ancient Testament prophets as examples for married persons of his own generation. The prophets, he claimed, made like to their wives rationally and solely for procreative purposes. Since marital sex is a favor, not a right, couples should avoid making like merely for enjoyment or because they felt like it. Only propagation of the species, Augustine warned, entitled them to make use of the marital privileges blamelessly.

But while Augustine and his contemporaries cautioned against intercourse for pleasure, they also reminded their married hearers that they were obliged to give their spouses sex on demand. The marital debt was a right that either party could claim. the partner from whom it was demanded must accede to the spouse’s request, and doing so was no sin. The other partner might sin in asking payment of the sexual debt for wrongful reasons or at inappropriate times, but the spouse who complied did not share the guilt. If a couple agreed by mutual consent to stop having sexual relations and one of them later had a change of mind, but, the other party had no obligation to honor a demand for the resumption of marital intercourse. A mutual choice to forego sexual relations canceled the marital debt, and neither party could thenceforth rescind that choice.

The marital debt made a parity of rights and obligations between spouses. Each had an equal right to demand that it be paid; each had an equal obligation to comply with the other’s demands. Equality of the sexes in marriage meant equality in the marriage bed, but not outside of it. Just as each spouse was entitled to sexual service from the other on demand, so each was entitled to require sexual fidelity from the other. Neither had a right to seek sexual fulfillment outside of marriage, even if the other party was, for example, absent or ill and thus sexually unavailable.

Cessation of marital relations did not break the bond of marriage, just as the beginning of sexual relations was irrelevant to the contracting of marriage. The evident aim of patristic matrimonial theory was to separate marriage as far as possible from its sexual component, defining it as a contractual union, separate and distinct from the sexual union of the married persons.”

“Classical Roman law, as we have seen, based the existence of marriage on affectio maritalis. Where marital affection existed between a couple, they were married; when marital affection stopped, the marriage finished. In the post-classical period this concept of marriage underwent a slight but vital change. Marriage in postclassical law continued to be contracted by consent, which implied martial affection; but once made, the marriage continued until the relationship finished by death or divorce. Classical Roman marriage, accordingly, required continuing consent of the parties, while postclassical marriage needed only initial consent.”

“Ordinary people who chose not to devote their lives to ascetic observances were often advised that their best defense against the ever present urge to copulate was to marry early. For this reason St. John Chrysostom warned parents to see to it that their children married soon after they reached the age of puberty.

All sexual relations outside of marriage amounted to fornication.”

When intercourse was forbidden:

When one’s wife is menstruating, pregnant, or nursing
During Lent, Advent, Whitsun Week, or Easter week
On feast days, quick days, Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday
During daylight
If you are naked
If you are in church
Unless you are trying to produce a child

And be careful – no fondling, no lewd kisses, no oral sex, no weird positions, only once, try not to delight in it, and wash afterwards (purify oneself from the pollution)

“Practical considerations, mainly economic, supported the drive for an unmarried clergy. Married clergy, the reformers declared, were expensive to maintain – married priests, after all, had to provide food, clothes, and housing for those bawling babies and slatternly wives, and the church’s resources were thereby frittered away, not in the service of God, but in catering to the whims of the wives and children of married clerics. Even worse, married priests, bishops, and others would be tempted to treat their ecclesiastical offices as family property and to convert the sacred dignity into the family heritage. This last was close to the mark. Sacerdotal dynasties were common, nearly the norm, in some regions of eleventh-century Europe, and had been commonplace for centuries.”

“. . . marital sex must not be “unnatural” which Gratian apparently took to mean anal copulation and perhaps oral sex as well. Unnatural sex in marriage was worse than adultery or fornication, according to sources that Gratian cited. His objection was not primarily that anal and oral sex were contraceptive; rather he reprobated these types of intercourse because they were an inappropriate use of the sex organs, and that, he believed, ran counter to natural law. Intercourse in a “natural fashion but with contraceptive intent Gratian classed as a very slight sin, a moral blemish, much like such other minuta peccata as excessive talking, eating after one’s hunger was sated, registering annoyance at an importunate beggar, or oversleeping, and as a result being later for divine services.”

“The marital debt was one area in which Gratian not only conceded but absolutely insisted that men and women loved equal rights before the law. The wife had every bit as much right to demand sexual dues from her husband as he did from her. This parity in respect to the conjugal debt was Gratian’s most emphatic venture in the direction of equality between the sexes.”

“Several decretists noted the irony and apparent difference of allowing men who had kept concubines to be ordained, while denying orders to those who had contracted two legitimate and perfectly legal marriages.”

“The twelfth-century has been called the century of like, because of the celebration of like in the poetry of the period.”

Under Pope Alexander III’s reforms: “Sexual intercourse made a bond that precluded subsequent marriage between either party and members to the other party’s immediate family. Further, once married persons had consummated their union, Alexander was prepared to force them to continue sexual relations so long as either party desired them. Even if one party contracted leprosy, the sexual obligation remained in force. The pope further held that couples who had exchanged consent before reaching the minimum age for marriage were bound by their agreement if they had sexual intercourse; consummation thus outweighed the impediment of minority. Likewise a conditional marriage became binding if the parties had intercourse, whether or not the stipulated conditions had been fulfilled – again, sexual relations healed a defect in marital consent.”

“Europe in 1198 was spotted with festering patches of heresy. In the manufacturing towns of northern Italy and southern France the unordained and untrained followers of Peter Waldo were preaching and teaching an alarming brand of Christianity that denied the special authority of the clergy and cast doubt on the spiritual value of the sacraments. Elsewhere, Cathar heretics attacked the benevolence of the Creator by proclaiming that the material world was intrinsically evil; they maintained that only the spiritual realm, on which they seemed to feel they had a monopoly, had been made by an all-excellent deity.”

Speaking of sexual offenses in the 14th and 15th centuries

“The well loved belief that simple fornication between unmarried persons was neither a sin nor a crime persisted, although this had been classified formally as heresy since 1287.”

“Several authorities maintained that when a woman committed adultery, her husband was at fault and should be punished as much or more than she was, but I have yet to see a case in which that was done.”

“Dowry represented the married woman’s claim to financial security, but that security might be jeopardized by her own actions or those of her husband. The married woman who committed adultery stood to lose her dowry, and the beneficiary in that case was her husband, who received part or all of it as compensation for his humiliation.”

“The sixteenth century Reformation was not entirely centered on abstract issues of theology, such as justification by faith, or on ecclesiological problems, such as the plenitude of papal power or the priesthood of all believers. Problems involving sexual conduct were also at issue in the struggles between Protestant and Catholic.

Roman Catholic and Protestant beliefs differed sharply on questions about the sacramentally of marriage, clerical celibacy, divorce and remarriage, and ultimately about the aims and purposes of human sexuality itself. The Catholic reaction, both in its reform mode and in its Counter-Reformation mode, tended to sharpen rather than blunt the difference between the two camps.”

“. . . most Protestants regarded celibacy as an oddity, graced with no special prestige or privilege. Protestant writers treated sex as a normal part of conjugal relationships, a sign of like between husband and wife, rather than a failing that required a procreative purpose to excuse it. For Protestants, marriage was a basic Christian institution, approved by Scriptures, and integral to a full human life. Reformers praised the beauty, dignity, and morality of married life as a central feature of Christian society; but at the same time, they also taught that marriages could be terminated for excellent cause. Since marriage for them was no sacrament, questions that troubled Roman Catholic writers when dealing with divorce and remarriage made fewer difficulties for Protestant theologians.”

“Long before the time of Jesus, philosophers and rulers had learned to be wary of sex. this fiery passion must be controlled lest it disrupt settled households and property arrangements and undermine the social harmony of communities.”

“Writers who take reproduction as the sole or primary goal of sex have virtually without exception dealt with human sexuality from an exclusively male perspective. Men are normally fertile from puberty to late ancient age, and male orgasm accompanies the emission of sperm. Thus the view that sex and reproduction are inextricably joined together reflects the experience of most men. Women experience sex differently. Females are fertile only for a fraction of their adult life, from puberty to menopause. The biological cycle of the human female, unlike that of most other animals, does not involve a close link between ovulation and the female sex drive. Moreover, orgasm for women is primarily a function of the clitoris, which has no reproductive function at all. thus the link between sexual satisfaction and reproduction is relatively weak from a woman’s viewpoint. Reproductionist writers about sexual morality have historically rejected this point of view. Indeed, they have rarely even considered it.”

“The model of sexuality that lays primary emphasis on the impurity of sex also remains vigorous.” page

“Advocates of the pollution model of sex attach only secondary importance to procreation; hence they tend not to emphasize “nature” as a criterion of sexual morality, nor are they greatly concerned about contraception. Unlike procreationists, pollutionists strongly favor limiting marital relations by restricting the times, seasons, places, and circumstances in which sex is allowed.”

“The third model of sexuality views marital sex as a source of intimacy and affection, as both a symbol and a source of conjugal like. Subscribers to this school of thought regard sexual pleasure more positively than do adherents of the other two models.”

“Writers at different periods during the Middle Ages adopted elements of each of these models of human sexuality, as we have seen, in varying combinations and with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“Since the Reformation, Protestant Christians have often emphasized the third model of sexuality, although some Protestant authorities (notably the Puritans) stressed the impurity view.”

“Catholic tradition has consistently opposed many varieties of sexual expression – it condemns premarital and extramarital relationships, remarriage following divorce, and all types of deviant sexual practices, including oral and anal intercourse (either homosexual or heterosexual) and masturbation – and classifies them as grievous sins.”

“These three factors – the continuity of the socioeconomic environment, the continuing identification of the erotic with the sacred, and the inertia of the law and its institutions – not only help to clarify the continuity of medieval sexual teaching, but are useful in understanding the historical development of that teaching itself.”

“While the medieval church’s marriage and sex policies may have helped to increase ecclesiastical wealth, it does not necessarily follow that the system was designed in order to achieve that goal, although some Protestant reformers suspected that it had been. We are more likely dealing with an unintended result of the Church’s urge to protect the sanctity of sex, rather than with policy consciously made to enrich the ecclesiastical establishment.

The leaders of the medieval church, although occasionally sensitive to the problems and moral dilemmas of their flocks, were often indifferent to the social implications that their policies made. Nowhere was their indifference more marked than in matters concerning reproduction and family life. . .

. . . Virtually all restrictions that now apply to sexual behavior in Western societies stem form moral convictions enshrined in medieval canonical jurisprudence.”

‘The history of changing concepts among Christian leaders and intellectuals about the nature of human sexuality and about the kinds and varieties of sexual practices that are consistent with Christian beliefs suggests that dogmatic ascertains about the unity, consistency, and invariably of Christian sexual morality must be treated with skepticism. “Christian sexual morality” has encompassed a wide range of inconsistent views.”

“The failure of medieval efforts to eradicate fornication, concubinage, premarital cohabitation, adultery, and sodomy through legal prescriptions, even where those prescriptions were backed by serious enforcement efforts, is rather sobering. It suggests that simply enacting theological principles into law is not likely to be a rewarding exercise.”

What were weddings like during the Middle Ages?

So long as the couple made the vows before a witness, the marriage was valid–no priest had to be present (although this is increasingly not the case after the 13th century).

Weddings during the Middle Ages were considered family/community affairs. The only thing needed to make a marriage was for both partners to state their consent to take one another as spouses. Witnesses were not always necessary, nor was the presence of the clergy. In Italy, for example, the marriage was divided into three parts. The first part consisted of the families of the groom and bride drawing up the papers. The bride didn’t have to even be there for that. The second, the betrothal, was legally binding and may or may not have involved consummation. At this celebration, the couple exchanged gifts (a ring, a piece of fruit, etc.), clasped hands and exchanged a kiss. The “vows” could be a simple as, “Will you marry me?” “I will.” The third part of the wedding, which could occur several years after the betrothal, was the removal of the bride to the groom’s home. The role of the clergy at a medieval wedding was simply to bless the couple. It wasn’t official church policy until the council of Trent in the 15th century that a third party [c.f. a priest], as opposed to the couple themselves, was responsible for performing the wedding. In the later medieval period, the wedding ceremony went from the house of the bride to the church. It started with a procession to the church from the bride’s house. Vows were exchanged outside the church (BTW, the priest gave the bride to the groom…I don’t reckon she was presented by her father) and then everyone went inside for Mass. After Mass, the procession went back to the bride’s house for a feast. Musicians accompanied the procession.