Conclusion

The conclusion centres on the four main thematic threads that run through the book. There was a marked move away from parental arrangements and frequent parental coercion to unions resulting from a couple’s consent and their own choice. Women especially at elite level probably were persuasive enough to make their fathers, brothers, and sons see the advantages in allowing the young to express their opinion and if necessary block their parents’ plans. The couple’s consent as a validating principle for marriage gives the clergy a supporting and enabling role rather than a creative one which should be attributed to the laity. Married clergy (and their wives) stressed the good of marriage for those who provided pastoral care. The lived experience of married life suggests that compatibility, a measure of sexual attraction, affection, and love better ensured a lasting relationship than an arbitrary property transaction arranged by parents between two families.

Single Life

This chapter is devoted to the single life. First it contains a section devoted to the issue of consent: who gives consent for the entry into monastic life, parents or the child? This section is followed by a discussion on single women in monastic and lay environments. The final section is devoted to single men in lay and monastic environments. The majority of single men and women were held hostage by economic circumstances rather than their own agency or choice. The relatively small group of religious young men and women entered their future destination by a combination of parental choice and their own agency. The increase in texts charting the generational battle for consent should be seen firmly in the wider context of a demand for choice amongst young people, especially women.

Living with One or More Partners

This chapter discusses the phenomenon of elite polygyny. It also contains a section on living together in arrangements that were not deemed formal marriages, and there is a brief discussion on Jewish and Muslim relations. Gradual acceptance of emotional ties of love and affection as a binding force in relationships may have helped to reduce the elite polygyny. Elite women supported by clergy raised concerns about elite polygyny. Below the level of the elite it remains extraordinarily difficult to identify who was formally married, in the sense of having been through a process of contract, exchange of wealth, and potentially a blessing. There are glimpses of ‘living together’ arrangements, which to all intents and purposes were stable monogamous sexual relationships even though they were never recognized as marriage by canon law.

Clerical Marriages

This chapter sets out the importance of clerical marriage for a study of married life. Two vignettes introduce the lives of married clergy in Parma (northern Italy) and Paris. Lay and clergy chose marriage as a union within which sexual relations were sanctioned, albeit only for the creation of offspring. Given the vocal opposition of a substantial number of clergy against chaste marriages we must conclude that for these clergy and their wives the sexual aspect of marriage was a compelling one and to be preferred to chaste marriage or celibacy. The married clergy were not afraid to physically defend their right to continue their marriages as sexual unions. A strong incentive may have had its roots in the emotional attachment and love a married priest’s couple may have felt for each other.

End of Marriage and Remarriage

This chapter discusses how marriages ended in death or dissolution or annulment, and how couples would start another marriage. There is a discussion on the couple’s sexuality after remarriage, as well as one on children and stepchildren. In the case of remarriage, the ingrained attitude of the clergy, theologically and practically, was that widows ideally should remain single. Yet, there were plenty of chaplains and other clerks sympathetic to the plight of those who were widowed and supportive of their wish to remarry. Fictional literature concentrates on the widow, not on the widower, and paints her as either devoted to her late husband’s memory or as sexually predatory. Chronicles and charters reveal complex and gendered relationships between stepparent and stepchild.

Sexuality and Love

This chapter discusses sex and the married couple, beds and bedrooms, and love and affection. The chapter illustrates in a sense the enduring human experience of living in sexually satisfying relationships if couples were fortunate to have found compatible partners. Amongst the elites arranged marriages could result in disastrous unions, though they were probably exceptions rather than the rule. Once the couple were married the clergy became even more invisible than they were during the process of couples getting married. The evidence on sexual pleasure as compatible with happy marriages in fictional narratives seems in line with loving and affectionate married bonds. Admittedly, evidence of love and affection mostly surfaced in moments of crisis characterized by the threat of loss of the beloved husband or wife.

Authority and Collaboration

This chapter discusses topics such as husbands’ authority and wifely advice, marital violence and collaboration, and shared responsibilities. Once married the husband became the head of the household and the wife fell under his authority. Patriarchal society was based on this inbuilt inequality that consisted often in a precarious balance between the husband, having to show that he was up to his authoritarian role, and the wife understanding her submissive position. A mutual sense of responsibility for their life together was often the glue that kept a couple together. This sense of mutual responsibility was naturally stronger the more affective the relationship was. Both men and women had a role in marriage, and increasingly society recognized that durable indissoluble unions had more chance of success if the couple were compatible, attracted to each other, and prepared to give the relationship a chance.

Wedding Celebrations

This chapter discusses the ceremonial aspect of wedding celebrations of elite weddings, lower-status weddings, so-called ‘mantle’ ceremonies, and wedding rings. Actual wedding celebrations often stretched out over a number of days of feasting, dancing, and jousting. Most accounts centre on the couple and their kin and friends, sometimes lords, with exceptionally little detail of any active involvement of the clergy. Although clergymen are often described as being present, and images reveal them as present, what they actually did at the ceremonies is either deemed so self-explanatory that none of the reporters (whether in fictional or historical narratives) felt it necessary to describe their role, or else it is a sign that their role was still ill defined. Despite the existence of medieval liturgical literature with its detail on what should happen, most of the accounts concentrate on the secular and domestic aspect of the celebrations.

Introduction

The introduction to the book contains a brief survey on the modern scholarship of the institution of medieval marriage and an overview of the modern historiographical debate on medieval marriage since George Duby (1919–96). There is a section on the medieval sources used for this book, especially narrative sources such as chronicles, saints’ lives, and miracle stories, as well as documentary sources such as decretal texts, episcopal letters, and charters. The introduction also contains a brief survey of four themes that run throughout the book as well as a note on the chronological and geographical scope of the book.

Making of Marriage

This chapter traces the process of who arranged marriages and how they were planned, with particular attention to the role of parents and kin, kings and lords, and initiatives of the couples themselves. In the period under discussion, marital arrangements were made by parents, kin, and lords with minimal input from the couple. In fact, the legality of marriage was subject to parental consent, not the couple’s. In the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries evidence emerged that suggests a development in thinking amongst the laity and clergy about what established a valid union. In narrative sources, such as chronicles, hagiography, and fiction, demands of young men and women for self-determination with respect to marriage were recorded. There seems to have been a gendered aspect to these emerging voices with more women than men, mostly from elite or well-to-do backgrounds, demanding a say in the choice of marriage partner.