The Ever-Changing Definition of Marriage
When I Google "marriage-in-the-news" up come numerous links to articles on how the states are either adding a "defense of marriage" amendment to their constitution or battling to revise it. Hawaii, the first state to have such an amendment, is now in the cross-fire to legalize same-sex civil unions. Also in the news, a pastor in West Virginia writes that he fears that activist judges will overturn his state's "defense of marriage" amendment, which could impinge on his religious freedom and erode the traditional definition of marriage. It's great for the people to have a say about marriage, but, truly, the definition of marriage is always evolving. Marriage is not a fixed thing like the sun rising in the morning and setting at night. We tend to think that way because of our own upbringing and the society we have known (not to mention what we see in the OzzieandHarrietLeaveItToBeaverFatherKnowsBest shows that still air today in the boondocks of our cable networks). However, the definition changes to meet social and economic needs.
As someone involved in medieval studies -- yes, medieval studies -- who looks at love and marriage, I can tell you that regulating human sexual behavior has always been a battleground. You might say, you've got to be kidding. How can looking at medieval love and marriage be even remotely relevant? That's a great question. It's relevant because the ethos that developed in Europe during the Middle Ages regarding sexuality is part of modern thought and practice. Many of the laws that developed regarding sexuality are part of modern laws.
Human sexual behavior, including marriage, adultery, rape, celibacy, and homosexuality, affects us economically, regarding property and how we set up ours households. Human sexual behavior also affects our ideas of morality. This has caused conflict between secular laws that regulate property and religious laws that watch out for our souls.
For the last 2,000 years, Western marriage and the regulation of sexual behavior by custom, secular law, and ecclesiastical law have never been static. However, by the mid-twelfth century, the canon law of the Christian Church in Europe became the dominant legal system on sexual morality. There were debates by theologians and jurists on whether marriage began with saying "I do" or with consummation. Should marriage be for procreation? Or should married couples be chaste companions? (Really. A sexless marriage was under consideration.) Debates raged on through the centuries regarding celibacy for the clergy (yes, in the first millennium priests used to marry), on divorce, and on consent from the parties involved rather than their parents or kin group. The Church tried out all kinds of laws. At one point, you couldn't marry your cousin up to seven times removed because it was considered incest. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council changed the rule to four times removed. You couldn't even marry the cousins of your godparents, because then you were committing spiritual incest.
Talk about intruding into the bedroom. Starting in the seventh century, handbooks for confessors had guidelines for married couples. For example, husbands and wives were to abstain from marital relations during the forty days of Lent and the four weeks of Advent. In some handbooks, couples were to refrain from whoopee on certain days of the week, such as all Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. And you couldn't love your wife too much, or it started to be considered the sin of adultery.
On the other hand, husbands and wives owed each other a "conjugal debt" to have sex with each other when a partner desired it. This right of a married person to bonk on demand could take priority over other duties and was such serious business that, until a decretal from Pope Innocent III (1198-216), a man needed his wife's permission to go on a Crusade because without him home she might be led to commit adultery.
One of the great achievements of the medieval efforts was to have the same marriage rules for rich and poor alike. Also, it was an achievement of hundreds of years to require the consent of the couple involved rather than their parents or kin. However, the medieval efforts to rid society of fornication, premarital cohabitation, adultery, prostitution, and sodomy -- just to name a few -- through the legal system failed. And the debates to control sexual behavior and to define marriage continue to this day.
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This is a great, informative piece. i enjoyed it immensely.
What's even better is how subtly you bring to light the archaic ideals of conservatism, when it comes to relationships and not just marriage.
Thanks!
Thank you. So many of our current attitudes have a long, deep history that goes way beyond the Puritans who came over here.
Thanks, Ms. Minogue for writing about marriage in a way that has the potential to achieve more light than heat. It's a rare relief to see some calm facts in the blogosphere. This has become a subject where people are frequently so focused on what they believe, what they need, and what they fear, that there's very little attention paid to what we as a species actually know.
I suppose it's inevitable that knowledge becomes politicized, but it's it's still nice to read a concise summary of historical fact without the sound of an axe being ground somewhere nearby.
I hope this encourages you; I'm looking forward to reading your next installment.
Thanks. Yep, marriage comes with many compartments. The rich used it for accumulating wealth, land, and political power. The poor just needed someone to spin wool and cook while they were out in the field with the plow all day. The rich used the rules of consanguinity to their benefit, too, when they wanted a new wife because the old one was barren or shrewish or old and the new one could bring in more economic advantages -- oops, I didn't know she was my cousin, so we have to get divorced. Then the church tightened the rules for divorce. It took hundreds of years to get the priests not to marry. The church didn't like the children of clerics inheriting positions in abbeys and churches. Also, commuications were different. Just because an edict came down in Rome or Avignon didn't mean it reached Scotland for 100 years. Some Old Testament patriarchs had several wives, concubines, and slaves. The rich during the middle ages had concubines. At certain points in time, the concubines and their children could inherit property. So you have to ask how many people exactly were in those marriages? Then, of course, the rules changed and you couldn't have concubines, they couldn't inherit, and the children were considered illegitimate. Love was not a reason for marriage. People fell in love but it was considered too flimsy a reason for marrying. It didn't become a popular notion until the mid-eighteenth century. So on it goes.
So because antiquated yet heterosexual notions of marriage once existed, that's all the rationale and justification we need to accept gay marriage?
That seems to be the gist of your article, Ms. Minogue.
Thank you for your feedback. The point of this post is that history shows us that the definitions and rules around marriage change all the time for social, economic, and religious reasons; they are not fixed. I plan to discuss in other posts what history shows us about polygamy, concubinage, homosexuality, prostituion, and love -- among other topics.
Calm down. ;) I'm both gay and irascible, but that's not what I've read here. I see some calm, accessible writing about history with no more interpretation than that necessary to place it in context, and no spin whatsoever.
Let's not assume that the only reason someone might write about past practices is to support continuing them, just because American Christofascists have blithely laid claim to the past 5,000 years.
LOL. That's cool. I'll reply more to the comments above.
It is really only in decadent Western democracies that the notion has flourished that the "government should stay out of the bedroom" as this article proves. Traditional Western Christian societies have always considered regulation of sex and sexuality as a normal function of the State.
Thank you for your feedback. All societies, governments, and religious institutions regulate sex and sexuality in some fashion. The point of this post was that the definitions and rules change all the time -- by the Church and the government (local, state, and federal). The debate has been alive and volatile throughout history and will probably continue to be so.
What a great article! THANK YOU!
We desperately NEED history, science, rational thought, critical thinking, etc. in America. In fact, we (the queer community) desperately need people of science and history and psychology and common decency to SPEAK OUT LOUDER - PLEASE!
Our families are suffering, and the lack of national concern for our family and children is smothering.
Hint - we are also experiencing the economy and housing crap, but WITHOUT financial safeguards you HETS enjoy without guilt. [i get to be bitter - i already lost everything]
You're welcome. Please hang in there. History shows us that the definition of marriage and the rules are always changing. I plan to keep writing...
I read a lot about the American family not exactly being the Father Knows Best paradigm in The Way We Never Were and Marriage: A History by Stephanie Coontz and I find this article very enlightening, Jane! Thanks for boldly presenting marriage and relationships in the context of history!
You're welcome. I love Stephanie Coontz and have read both of those books. For great information about medieval marriage, see Georges Duby and James Brundage. For information on early modern marriage, I like Lawrence Stone and James Grantham Turner.
Thank you for inserting some accurate history into an argument where one side (the opponents to same-sex marriage) often argue from a distortion of actual history.
Unfortunately, they'll keep distorting history. It works for their side to insist that marriage has always been religious, even though the Catholic Church didn't always consider it a sacrament.
Thank you. You're right that marriage was late in becoming a sacrament. Marriage had two models, one secular, which was for economic reasons, and an ecclesiastical model, which was for spiritual reasons. The two models started to merge about 1,000 years ago. Then love came into the picture...
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