In this episode, we discuss about 16th-century marriage customs with some advice from an early 17th-century minister, just for fun.
Book recommendation:
Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages by Frances Gies and Joseph Gies
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Transcript: Love and Betrothal
Hello, and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast. I’m your host, Heather Teysko. Since it’s February, which is the month of Valentine’s Day when thoughts turned to romance and love, I thought it would be appropriate to do an episode on love and marriage. I know I had said I would do something on the Tudor colleges, and I’m still working on that. So you’ll just have to stay tuned.
Let’s get started with a few general thoughts about love and marriage in the Renaissance. One thing to think about is that customs did differ between the period of the early Tudors and Queen Elizabeth. There was a span of over 120 years there, and certainly, we can see in our own time, that our own views of marriage have changed greatly in the past 120 years.
So to take any one time period and use it as a snapshot for the entire Renaissance period wouldn’t be accurate. It’s also really fascinating to look a little bit before the Renaissance to see where some of the customs from the 16th century came from.
Interestingly, in the medieval period, in addition to legally binding marriage, concubinage was also socially recognized and legally binding, and had rights similar to marriage. If there was no property to be transferred, but one simply wanted companionship, one could enter into a concubine relationship.
Also, early Frankish society recognized two levels of marriage, one which involve transferring property rights, and the other didn’t. Moving onwards, by the 16th century, the Catholic Church had formalized marriage into the recognizable institution that we would be familiar with. Though there were still some lingering considerations when dealing with the transfer of property.
Age of Consent
Girls could get married at the age of 12. For boys, it was 14. Though usually only noble arranged marriages between princes and princesses of different countries had betrothal and ceremonies, and got married this young.
The official age of consent was 21. Thomas More himself recommended that girls not married before 18 and boys not before 22. For non-noble families, the average age of marriage was similar to what it is now, around 25 or 26 for men, and 23 or 24 for women. This was largely because men needed to finish apprenticeships before they could have the money to support a family.
Purposes of Marriages
Noble families would arrange marriages earlier since marriages were also strategic alliances, and the primary purpose was to transfer landholdings. When nobles got married this early, the bride would sometimes go to live with the groom’s family and be brought up by her mother-in-law.
It was generally considered foolish to marry for love. Those certainly love could occur in marriage, but getting married for love really wasn’t done. Of course, there are also stories where people did marry for love, like that of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV. But the reason we even mentioned that part of their lives is because it was so extraordinary.
Even the lower classes generally had their marriages arranged. Though the lower you were in social status, the more say you could have over who your parents picked for you to marry. People assumed that because their parents and relatives were older and wiser than they were, they would be better able to judge potential marriage partners. Wives would become the legal property of their husbands.
Prior to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII and the Protestant Reformation, if a woman was inclined towards not marrying, she could perhaps persuade her parents to let her join a convent, where she could spend her life in prayer and in theory away from men. She could even have a career if she chose to become an abbess if she rose that high, or have a position of authority in a convent.
After the Reformation, though, that option went away as well. Every woman grew up knowing that she must get married. Otherwise, her father or her brother would have to support her forever. Marriage did mean though, that you got to be the queen of your own little castle. The woman’s domain was in the home. Noble wives would manage entire estates when their husbands were away at court.
Men also had to get married to be considered the legal head of a household and hold any sort of public office or hold any other position of responsibility if he was not already a nobleman. Both widows and widowers generally got remarried quickly.
A woman could inherit directly though her signature was not legally binding. So it was kind of tough to do anything with the lands and assets that she may have inherited. Also, if she had children, she would want to remarry, so that the children would have someone protecting them.
Unmarried widows were especially vulnerable as they got older. Most of the cases of witchcraft accusations, for example, were levied against unmarried widows who did not have a husband to protect them. A man would want to get remarried especially if he had children so that he could have someone to raise them.
Interestingly, divorce was actually harder to get under the Protestants than the Catholics in England. With the latter, you just needed a Papal dispensation. But with the Protestants, you needed an Act of Parliament. Either way, only wealthy people were really able to afford a divorce.
Betrothals
So let’s say that your parents have decided on the person of your dreams, or at least your future spouse, and their parents have even agreed. Happy days! When a man and woman got engaged, it was called a betrothal. The man would give her a ring to wear on her right hand, and that would switch to her left hand after they were married. They would have a contract that would be signed, and the contract would outline the dowry that the woman was bringing to the marriage, as well as how the woman would be cared for if the husband died first.
Betrothals could be terminated by mutual consent easily enough, if say, you just really can’t stand each other, or more than likely your parents really can’t stand each other. If only one of you can’t stand the other though, you’ve got more of a problem.
One could withdraw without the permission of the other only if they were guilty of heresy, guilty of infidelity, had a pre-contract, or were already married without you knowing, were guilty of drunkenness or wickedness, or have a long separation had occurred between them.
Wedding Proper
A proper wedding was based on three things: consent, exchange of tokens like a ring, and the consummation. The marriage can only be annulled if it was not consummated. The actual wedding ceremony was religious in nature. You didn’t have a registry office or justices of the peace performing ceremonies.
The first stage was the Crying the Banns in which the couple would announce their intention to marry. It had to be announced three times on consecutive Sundays in church or holy days. This allowed any objections to be raised or pre contracts to be discovered. A marriage that wasn’t announced like this wasn’t considered legal.
If a couple didn’t have the several weeks to go through the bureaucracy of Crying the Banns you could get a Marriage Bond, which acted as the contract and was accompanied with a statement that there was no pre-contract. This would require only one reading of the banns. That was actually what Shakespeare needed to marry Anne Hathaway since she was pregnant and he was under the age of consent.
Wedding Customs
The custom of wearing a white dress didn’t start until much later. So a bride would just wear her best dress, or a new dress if she had the money and would be attended by her family and close friends. A bride would process from her home to the church, generally accompanied by musicians, and then there would be the solemn ceremony in the church. After that, there would be a feast at one of the family’s homes.
The bride would carry her garland until after the ceremony, at which point she would wear it on her head. And the bride’s father would pay for the wedding and also for favors for everyone. One bride’s father in 1559 paid for new gloves for all the guests for example.
Marriage Ideals and Legitimacy
There was a lot of thinking and talking and writing about marriage during the Renaissance. One of the main forces behind the Protestant Reformation was the myth of the celibate monk. there was a great debate about whether clergy should be allowed to marry or not.
As printing got more popular in England advice books came out about marriage and family life. One of Domesticall Duties by William Gouge, a Puritan minister in 1622, outlined the specific duties of husbands and wives to each other. It warned women against such things as a conceit that wives are their husbands’ equal, and told husbands to offer mild and loving speech to their wives.
During the Reformation, there was also a lot of questioning about whether the church should even be involved in performing marriages. Martin Luther argued that marriage was a worldly business and clergy ought not to meddle in them. Though he did say that the church should bless those who married and he even wrote a basic marriage right in 1529. But he also wrote that the regulation of marriage was for the civil authority, rather than the church.
Similarly, the Catholic Church did a lot of soul searching on marriage. And in 1563, they issued a decree in the Council of Trent, which codified what a legitimate marriage was. For a marriage to be recognized by the church, the partners must each give their consent and the priest must say something like “I join you together in marriage,” which ratified the marriage, and then everyone could live happily ever after.
Book recommendation is Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages by Frances and Joseph Gies. I will put a link up on the blog. You can also visit the blog to send me comments, story ideas or other general thoughts. The address is Englandcast.com. Or you can also find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/englandcast.
Thank you so much for listening. I’ll be back next time with that long-promised history of some of the famous colleges and universities that were founded by the Tudors. Thank you so much for listening!
[advertisement insert here: if you like this show, and you want to support me and my work, the best thing you can do (and it’s free!) is to leave us a rating on iTunes. It really helps others discover the podcast. Second best is to buy Tudor-themed gifts for all your loved ones at my shop, at TudorFair.com, like leggings with the Anne Boleyn portrait pattern on them, or boots with Elizabeth I portraits. Finally, you can also become a patron of this show for as little as $1/episode at Patreon.com/englandcast … And thank you!]