Medieval Marriage: Love Was Never the Point

What’s love got to do with it?

Marriage amongst the aristocracy in the medieval period was rarely based on love. Unions were the means by which titles and land, equating to power and wealth, were transmitted from family to family; alliances were cemented, and political networks established. In other words, marriages were primarily a business arrangement. Unions based on desire, affection, or even liking were neither expected nor looked for throughout the medieval period and beyond. When Robert Dudley, Elizabeth I’s favourite, married his first wife, Amy Robsart, in 1550, William Cecil—an employee of the Duke of Northumberland—noted with some disapproval that the union was a ‘carnal marriage, begun for pleasure’. Isabel de Clare, who married William Marshal in 1189, met her husband-to-be on the morning of their wedding. Few elite women of the period had any real choice as to whom they would marry or an opportunity to build a relationship before they were wed, unless theirs was a cradle marriage, which gave the couple the opportunity to grow up together in the same household.

Parents and guardians negotiated matches for their children and wards that were of greatest political and financial benefit to themselves or to their extended families. Little thought was given to the compatibility of the bride and groom. In the fifteenth century, Anne Beauchamp’s family arranged her wedding to Richard Neville whilst the couple were still children as a subsidiary to the marriage of their siblings, Henry Beauchamp and Cecily Neville, reinforcing an alliance between the earls of Warwick and Salisbury.

Finding Mr or Miss Right

A woman’s position rested on her husband’s rank and power. Parents pursued unions that would ensure the financial and social security of their daughters. An heir to estates and titles could expect to marry a woman whose lands and wealth were proportionate to his own. On occasion, kings refused permission for such unions for fear of the resulting political influence a noble might wield. There were also circumstances when a monarch might reward a loyal servant and ensure that strategic lands remained in safe hands through a carefully considered wedding alliance. For example, Isabel de Clare’s marriage to William Marshal meant that her lands passed into the keeping of her spouse. Marshal, a fourth son, acknowledged his indebtedness to his wife and, on occasion, spoke plainly that without her, he would have nothing. The subsequent birth of her children effectively reassigned the estates and power she personified into the hands of a new Marshal dynasty. Sometimes, fate played a hand. Richard Neville became the 16th Earl of Warwick—and one of the most powerful men in England—by right of his wife when Henry Beauchamp died unexpectedly in 1446, followed by his only legitimate child in 1449.

What the Catholic Church had to say about marriage

The practical transfer of land between families upon marriage was juxtaposed with the spiritual aspect of a union between a man and a woman, which was enshrined in canon law. The Church also sought to provide safeguards against deception, bigamy, and the taint of illegitimacy.

• The Catholic Church, under the papacy of Alexander III, formulated ideas about the nature of marriage and the importance of free and mutual consent. The Church ruling was vague about the kind of pressure that could be applied before consent became coercion, stating that a constant person would not be swayed. There was, on occasion, a very thin line between duress and assent. Heiresses who were abducted often ended up married to their abductors.

• Marriage was permitted by Church and State from puberty onwards: 12 years of age for girls and 14 years for boys, although it was more usual to marry later. The Church frowned upon so-called cradle marriages. It ruled that if a child had not reached the age of reason, which was seven years, when it was betrothed, the agreement was not binding.

• The Catholic Church regulated marriage by determining whether a couple were free to marry one another by setting standards for consanguinity, or the degree to which relationships became incestuous. After 1215, couples were required to count back up their family tree for four generations. If they shared a common ancestor, the marriage would be deemed incestuous. However, families might apply for a papal dispensation to permit a marriage to go ahead despite being related within the prohibited degrees. Matters were further complicated by impediments of affinity—or non-blood ties—that included godparents and relatives through marriage.

• It was only in 1215, at the Fourth Lateran Council, that marriage became a holy sacrament, and Pope Innocent III adopted the need for banns to be called three times, at least a day apart, before the wedding ceremony, to allow an opportunity for any objections to be made known. Even then, banns were not a legal requirement for a marriage to be valid. It was sufficient for a couple to exchange verbal vows that they intended to marry one another. They did not even need a priest or witnesses to be present. Joan of Kent famously made a secret marriage in 1340, when she was about 12 years old, to Thomas Holland before he departed on a military campaign. The following year, her family arranged for Joan to marry the heir of the 1st Earl of Salisbury. When Holland returned to England, about eight years after he had made his secret marriage with Joan, he appealed to the Pope for the return of his lawful wife and was successful.

• Marriage was regarded as validated in two parts: through both verbal consent and physical consummation. Without the act of physical lovemaking, there were grounds for annulment. A husband only retained a life interest in his wife’s inheritance, subject to the birth of at least one child, even if it only lived for a few minutes. This allowed him full possession of his wife’s estates in his own right even after her death.

What the Common Law decreed

Theoretically, the majority of women were without power. Girls and women were considered legally incompetent both before and after their marriage. Christian theology and the science of the time considered women to be weaker, more fragile, and less morally able than their male counterparts. In the eyes of the law, when a woman took a husband, she and her spouse became as one. Everything she owned became her spouse’s, but in return, a wife was under the protection of the man she married. Coverture meant that a woman’s official identity merged with that of her husband. She remained in the shadows of her spouse, legally and administratively, until she became a widow.

Making a bargain – dowers, dowries and jointures

Marriage settlements specified what estates a woman would hold in the event of her husband’s death. After the Norman Conquest, it was usual for a woman to receive a maritagium, or marriage portion, from her father. In time, this became known as a dowry. It was the property that a girl’s family agreed to transfer to her new husband at the time of their marriage. The grant was usually conditional on there being children from the union, or else the land might be reclaimed. In return, the groom’s family bestowed a dower upon the bride, which became the bride’s property to control for as long as she lived—even if she was widowed or her husband was attainted of treason and all his possessions were forfeit to the Crown. Dowers and dowries were negotiated in advance of a marriage. On occasion, the land that the bride’s family transferred became part of her dower. In time, the dower settled at one-third of a man’s estate at the time of his marriage, to be held by his widow for her lifetime.

Anne Neville’s marriage to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in 1472 was unusual for a couple of their rank in that no dowry could be agreed upon because of her father’s death as a traitor and the denial of her mother’s legal rights. Where there was no formal agreement, common law gave one-third of a man’s property to his widow for her lifetime in the event of his death before hers. This law did not apply to the widows of attainted traitors.

Aristocratic women expected a jointure as well as a dower. This was land settled on by both husband and wife whilst both were alive, but which became the property of the survivor on the death of the other, even in the case of treason. Widows who married two or three times could become extremely wealthy, as their dower and jointure lands accumulated to the detriment of the heirs to their husbands’ estates, who had to wait for their mothers, stepmothers, and even grandmothers to die before being licensed to enter their inheritance in its entirety. These women were not only wealthy; they were also independent and influential within their families.