Who invented marriage official

For much of human history, couples were brought together for practical reasons, not because they fell in love. In time, of course, many marriage partners came to feel deep mutual love and devotion. But the idea of romantic love, as a motivating force for marriage, only goes as far back as the Middle Ages. Naturally, many scholars believe the concept was "invented" by the French. Its model was the knight who felt intense love for someone else's wife, as in the case of Sir Lancelot and King Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere.

Twelfth-century advice literature told men to woo the object of their desire by praising her eyes, hair, and lips. In the 13th century, Richard de Fournival, physician to the king of France, wrote "Advice on Love," in which he suggested that a woman cast her love flirtatious glances—"anything but a frank and open entreaty.

Did love change marriage? It sure did. Marilyn Yalom, a Stanford historian and author of A History of the Wife, credits the concept of romantic love with giving women greater leverage in what had been a largely pragmatic transaction. Wives no longer existed solely to serve men. The romantic prince, in fact, sought to serve the woman he loved. Still, the notion that the husband "owned" the wife continued to hold sway for centuries.

When colonists first came to America—at a time when polygamy was still accepted in most parts of the world—the husband's dominance was officially recognized under a legal doctrine called "coverture," under which the new bride's identity was absorbed into his. The father, as the head of the family, had complete authority over them. This authority extended to such matters as adoption and inheritance. How big the family unit got depended where in Mesopotamia it formed. The family unit in Mesopotamia was small and restricted, although in certain regions of southern Babylonia clan like or even tribal organizations of some sort existed.

In neo-Babylonian times, a measure of family consciousness appeared in the form of ancestral family names for identification purposes. The first step in creating a family unit, whether small or clan like, is of course the marriage. Ironically, for most of history, it left the prospective bride out of the decision-making process.

Marriage, regarded as a legal contract, and divorce as its breakup were similarly affected by official procedures. The future husband and his father-in-law agreed on a contract and if a divorce occurred, the father-in-law was entitled to satisfaction. The contract made between suitor and the father of the expected bride stipulated a price for the maiden's hand. She received the sum given to the father.

If the marriage did not produce children then the price the groom had paid for his wife was returned to him upon on her death, if it had not been returned previously. Lack of children was not the only reason for returning the price paid for the wife; her death could create a refund. Once married, the girl became a full member of her future husband's family.

If he died, she would marry one of his brothers or, if he lacked brothers, one of his near relatives. If these conditions did not take place, her father returned all his rights over her, and gave back all the presents that she had received except those consumed. Conversely, if the girl died, and her intended husband did not want to marry one of her sisters, he would take back all the presents that he had given her. An agreement once reached indicated that the actual wedding ceremony could now take place.

This ceremony took the form of the delivery of the wife to her husband. If both belonged to the class of free citizens, the husband veiled his bride in the presence of witnesses and solemnly declared 'she is my wife'. During the ceremony of betrothal, the girl's future husband poured perfume on her head and brought her presents and provisions. After the wedding, where the couple would live remained the sole issue.

Though marriage was legally or sacramentally recognized between just one man and one woman, until the 19th century, men had wide latitude to engage in extramarital affairs , Coontz said. Any children resulting from those trysts, however, would be illegitimate, with no claim to the man's inheritance. Marriages in the West were originally contracts between the families of two partners, with the Catholic Church and the state staying out of it. In , the Catholic Church decreed that partners had to publicly post banns, or notices of an impending marriage in a local parish, to cut down on the frequency of invalid marriages the Church eliminated that requirement in the s.

Still, until the s, the Church accepted a couple's word that they had exchanged marriage vows, with no witnesses or corroborating evidence needed. In the last several hundred years, the state has played a greater role in marriage.

For instance, Massachusetts began requiring marriage licenses in , and by the 19th-century marriage licenses were common in the United States. By about years ago, the notion of love matches gained traction, Coontz said, meaning marriage was based on love and possibly sexual desire. But mutual attraction in marriage wasn't important until about a century ago. In fact, in Victorian England, many held that women didn't have strong sexual urges at all, Coontz said.

Around the world, family-arranged alliances have gradually given way to love matches, and a transition from an agricultural to a market economy plays a big role in that transition, Coontz said. Parents historically controlled access to inheritance of agricultural land. But with the spread of a market economy, "it's less important for people to have permission of their parents to wait to give them an inheritance or to work on their parents' land," Coontz said.

As early as the 12th Century, Roman Catholic theologians and writers referred to marriage as a sacrament, a sacred ceremony tied to experiencing God's presence. However, it wasn't until the Council of Trent in that marriage was officially deemed one of the seven sacraments, says Elizabeth Davies, of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. Following the development of Protestant theology, which did not recognise marriage as a sacrament, the Council felt a need to "clarify" marriage's place.

Marriage vows, as couples recite them today, date back to Thomas Cranmer, the architect of English Protestantism. Cranmer laid out the purpose for marriage and scripted modern wedding vows nearly years ago in his Book of Common Prayer , says the Reverend Duncan Dormor of St John's College at the University of Cambridge.

Although the book was revised in and , "the guts of the marriage service are there in ," he says. But much of it was "pilfered from Catholic medieval rites", such as the Sarum marriage liturgy, which was all in Latin except the actual vows. Before , divorce was rare. This created a precedent for parliamentary divorces on the grounds of the wife's adultery, according to the National Archives.

It also set the precedent for more than cases between the late 17th and midth Centuries - each requiring an act of Parliament. It was only in that divorce could be carried out via legal process. Even then divorce was too expensive for most people, and there was the added challenge for wives of proving "aggravated" adultery - that their husbands had been guilty of cruelty, desertion, bigamy, incest, sodomy or bestiality, Probert says.

The gates for divorce opened with the Divorce Reform Act of Instead of pointing the finger, couples could cite marital breakdown as the reason for the split.

The Clandestine Marriage Act of , popularly known as Lord Hardwicke's Act, marked the beginning of state involvement in marriage, says sociologist Carol Smart of the University of Manchester. The act required couples to get married in a church or chapel by a minister, otherwise the union was void.

Couples also had to issue a formal marriage announcement, called banns, or obtain a licence. Most prospective newlyweds were already following these directives, which were enshrined in canon law.