2009
Sappho Speaks: “The Real History of Marriage – Where is the Sanctity? – Part Two”
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Lectori Salutem! or L.S. (Greetings to the Reader!)
Before you read this know I am a great supporter of the institution of marriage as I grew up in a family of only a few divorces (I can count on one hand) among all my cousins and second cousins, Aunts and Uncles. Oh, and this will be a three part-er so as not to be overwhelmingly long. See Part One.
PART TWO: The Early Christian Era Through the Industrial Revolution
From the early Christian era (1st through 4th century) marriage was thought of as primarily a private matter still enacted for political and social status with child bearing the ultimate purpose of a woman. A contract was all that was needed as no religious or pagan ceremony was required or attempted. As marriage evolved and our ultimate culture here in America migrated to Europe in 6th century, the insitution had been characterized as political polygamy. For example, the Germanic warlord Clothar, despite being a baptized Christian, eventually acquired four wives for strategic reasons, including his dead brother’s wife, her sister and the daughter of a captured foreign king. This practiced polygamy is not uncommon among “Christian” men.
In the 11th century the Catholic Church finally turns marriage into a Holy Sacrament with Impediments in place to change marriage into a serious act before God. The Impediments were: Consanguinity (can’t marry a relative closer than a 1st cousin); Affinity (relationship with someone in the direct line, ie brother-in-law); prior bond to someone else; Holy Orders; perpetual vows of chastity in a religious institute; Disparity of cult (one party not baptized); Crimen (one party conspiring to marry another upon death of a spouse while still married, called “conjugicide”); non-age (16 for boys, 14 for girls); and finally abduction. The only reason I included these were I thought they were interesting to a non-Catholic – the keys to the proverbial kingdom of marital heaven. Of course, an annulment can be bought. Yes, I mean bought. I know of marriages that produce offspring and last 10 to 15 years and are granted special dispensation from the Pope for an annulment so they may marry again. It takes money, connections, repentance, circumstances I am sure, and lots of patience, but it can be done and another Catholic wedding can be performed and sanctioned by the Church. Maybe you should take a break now, STRETCH YOUR LEGS. WE”RE AT ABOUT THE HALFWAY POINT. DON’T FORGET. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!!!
So, now that marriage is a sacrament what are all these men with all the power going to do? Well, marry of course and stop the polygamy in the open and all of a sudden a new word pops up in the vocabulary – MISTRESS. That is where men looked for feelings of love and affection. The wife’s role changes nothing – political power, prestige, families merging, financial gain, producing male heirs, etc are reserved for the wife but mistresses were for sex. Although it was a sacrament, their was no ritual or ceremony for years to come and a priest not even need be there for the blessing – a deacon and a few witnesses were just fine. The Roman model continued to work well into the 14th century and beyond for the aristocrats in Europe.
In fourteenth-century Europe, ordinary people could no longer choose whom to marry. The lord of one Black Forest manor decreed in 1344 that all his unmarried tenants—including widows and widowers—marry spouses of his choosing. Elsewhere, peasants wishing to pick a partner had to pay a fee that nary a one of them could afford so like the aristocrats they sought love in secret and agreed to marry those chosen for them.
Through all this time of church sanctioned marriages, the unions were by mutual consent and the church was the only place where marriage could take place. These were times when labor was hard whether you were a landowner or a tradesman. Marriage was required to further you life and career and the choice of a wife was not based on love but on necessity. A landowner might need to marry into a family that had livestock or a blacksmith might need a wife who was able to attend to his tools as well as the house, the meals and any apprentices he might have working for him. Marriages were very important for life to perpetuate and were chosen with great care – often from within your own family structure at a second cousins’ distance or greater. There was ever a saying that grew out of these days that summed up the society’s overall view of marrying for love: “Those who marry for love will have contented days and sleepless nights” indicating that a this type of choice would cause all kinds of worry and suffering for those who chose this perilous route.
This type of contractual system continued on into the feudal days and all the way up to the days when man and woman could start to earn a living independent of the society they was born into. Once towns began to flourish in the 19th century in Europe where they could earn a living independent of family such as factories, dress shops etc. so that each had a choice with whom they were going to be with and the motives for marriage slowly began to shift. This trading of wives continued in the new world until early on in the 19th century as well and marriage was strictly a civil and not an ecclesiastical ceremony for the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay until 1686. The following archaic laws applied to woman, some as lasting until a mere 80 years ago that I will reveal momentarily: courtship of women was not allowed without consent of the father; from 1492 to 1662 interracial (of any kind) couples were allowed to marry; until the 1850’s women has no legal standing to own anything, sign anything, or control their own wages; in 1848 in New York, the Married Women Protection Act allowed women to own property; and the age of consent through the 1850’s was 10 years old. As the industrial revolution came and made men independent of each other financially, the idea of choosing a mate for marriage changed from a system based on contractual obligations between families to a relationship based on love between individuals.
It is this shift that first opens the door to give homosexuals the equal footing to the idea of marriage. Marriage now becomes based of the idea of love for many but it is also based on family and procreation. It is this second and third requirement that still left room for ambiguity as to whether gay people should be included in the definition of marriage, but these caveats would also fall by the wayside as time went on.
Just wait for the final and most explosive part. The introduction of the cries that defined the reasons against gays marriage and each argument waged by religious and secular definitions are knocked to the ground!!!
Much Love.
Inspired By Sappho’s Music
QUOTES OF THE DAY
First and foremost, I’m a feminist. And basically that stems from a strong belief that all people and creatures deserve equal opportunity, rights and respect.
Kathy Najimy
We need to guarantee equal rights and civil rights and say that, here in America, workers have the right to organize – women have the right to choose – and justice belongs to everyone regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation.
John Kerry
