Marriage: Law and Practice

doi:10.1017/9781139177221.025

24 - Marriage: Law and Practice

from Conubium

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2022

Sara McDougall

Edited by

Anders Winroth and

John C. Wei

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Anders Winroth: Affiliation:
Universitetet i Oslo

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Summary

Marriage posed problems of immense complexity for medieval canonists. They had the unenviable task of providing guidelines for how to partake in a complex, weighty, and dangerous matter. Marriage was considered sacred, divinely sanctioned, but at the same time it was all too worldly, rife with the risk of committing grave sins. Competing notions of how best Christians should marry in compliance with the teachings of the Old and New Testaments posed problems enough to cause endless difficulties for canonists. Even more problematic, if anything, was the fact that marriage was of immense importance in their society, a bedrock of social, economic, and political organization. All this led to myriad competing concerns. The solutions posed by medieval popes and canonists have had a mixed reception. They certainly failed to impress sixteenth-century reformers.

Keywords

Medieval marriage Medieval gender Medieval family Consent in marriage

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Medieval Canon Law , pp. 453 - 474

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139177221.025 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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