HISTORY OF MARRIAGE

Highlights of the History of Marriage

Fr. Virgilio hernandez

Scientia Liturgica:

San beda college graduate school of liturgy research journal,

volume 111, no. 1, 2008

• Pre-note

1. This attempts to look into the development and evolution of the rite of Christian marriage in the course of history. It does not intend to delve much into the rite, but rather to show the rite developed and evolved through the various epochs in the West, that is, in the Latin Church.

2. The origin of the ritual history of Christian marriage is to be looked into not only on the basis of Scripture but also in the light of the social customs and practices of the time and place in which Christians live.

3. The development of the rite of marriage represents two main stages. In the first stage, no Christian Church has offered any ritual celebration of marriage. It accepted the view of marriage as largely a SECULAR REALITY originating in the act of human freedom and expressed in a multiplicity of concrete forms. It was considered a Holy and Sacred State but not subjected to canonical legislation or ecclesiastical intervention.

                In the second stage, from the 11^th century onward, weddings were only gradually introduced into the formal sphere and canonical power of the Church. Wedding celebrations were gradually INCORPORATED into the canonical regulations and liturgical rituals of the Church. 

• I. Christian marriage in the first three centuries

1. Liturgical documents are sparse in the Pre-Constantine period. There was NO HINT whatsoever of any sacred GESTURE or any Christian PRAYER of marriage. No evidence could be found attesting to the existence of a liturgical blessing or participation of a priest in the rite of marriage.

2. The first generation Christians retained the customary practices of their own culture so far as they do not conflict with the tenets of Christianity. They followed the customary folk marriage celebrations, regulated by existing local traditions and laws. They perceived marriage on the basis of the teachings of Christ and the Apostles. The Church’s concern was exclusively PASTORAL.

3. Marriage is celebrated according to the practices and tradition of the people AS LONG AS they conformed to the Christian faith (e.g. Marriage is union of Christ and the Church). As a minority, the Christians did not bother to distance themselves from the customs of the people. They were very conscious and cautious about avoiding any IDOLATROUS elements in the ceremony, as well as the licentious ASPECTS of the celebrations.

4. The Letter to Diognetus best describes the situation in the first three centuries when he wrote that “Christians do not DIFFER from other men and women in country or language or customs… they MARRY like EVERYONE else.”

5. In Rome, the Greco-Latin culture managed to influence even the customs surrounding marriage. The custom of Roman society showed the important place occupied by the FAMILY. In fact, the only celebration of marriage that Christians experienced until the Constantinian Peace were these rites performed within the family.

                According to the Roman Law, a valid marriage consisted essentially in a mutual consent (consensus), which required only a few conditions such as (1)AGE, (2)PERMISSION FROM PARENTS or parental consent, and (3)ABSENCE OF IMPEDIMENTS like kinship, affinity, or civil law.

                As early as 3^rd century, among the Greco-Romans, there are two distinct and separate MOMENTS in the lives of future spouses: Betrothal and Marriage.

               

                (1) Betrothal was distinct from marriage; it was celebrated at a family meal: the fiancee, after the exchange of promises, gave his future wife an iron ring, which she wore on the 4^th finger of her left hand (there is a vein which carries the blood to the heart), and some presents a dowry (arrhae sponsaliciae) as a pledge of their future union. Likewise a kiss, which may have been introduced in the 3^rd century, gave a juridical value to the promise of marriage.

                (2) The ceremony, on the other hand, itself of marriage has three stages:

                A. The first stage consisted of the dressing/ vesting of the bride who wore a crown of myrtle or orange branches and a yellow veil with red highlights (flammeum) as the distinctive mark of married women. The donning of the veil was so important that it was synonymous to “marrying.”

                B. The second stage (presentation of the bride) took place in the home of the bride. It went as follows: (1)the bride was presented by a married woman (the pronuba) acting as a kind of maid of honor, (2) the consultation of soothsayers which was always favorable, and, (3) above all, the reading of the tabulae nuptiales (marriage contract) in the presence of witnesses who affixed their names on it.

                (4) After the exchange of consent (consensus), (5) the bride (wife) was delivered by the pronuba, sometimes a father or the guardian of the bride, to her groom (husband) by having them join their right hands (dexterarum iunctio).

               

                 C.  The third stage (procession to the bridal chamber) took place in the evening with a torch-light procession accompanying the bride to the house of the husband (cf. the parable of the bridegroom). Then, they were conducted to the bridal chamber where he (husband) removed the cloak of his bride. At this juncture, everyone else withdrew (for their eyes only- obvious ba?).

• ii. Christian marriage in the west from 4^th to 10^th century

                The absence of the any liturgical rite of marriage before the 4^th century consequently led to its development on the basis of the SECULAR customs of the people. It was inevitable that the blessing of Christ should find visible expression in the blessing given by the father of the family or the bishop or a priest invited to the wedding.

1. Velatio Nuptialis. At the end of the 4^th century in Rome and Milan, a ceremony called “velatio Nuptialis, ” subsequently described by Paulinus of Nola (c. 353-431) in his poem 25, was referred to by Ambrose (374-397) and Pope Siricius (384-399).

                Here, the groom’s father leads the betrothed couple to the altar while the bride’s FATHER gives the nuptial blessing to the spouses, whose heads are covered during the entire prayer by a veil (cf. shekinah; vel=veil), that is separated from the red highlights (flammeum).

                As late as the 5^th century the blessing seems not to have has a set text. The Verona Sacramentary entitles it Velatio Nuptialis and provides a formulary for both the blessing and the Mass. The nuptial blessing, which is a solemn prayer in the Roman Liturgy, speaks only of the WIFE; later, though the veil was extended to cover the shoulders of the husband as well.

                It was to this veiling that Rome gave liturgical status: Like the virgin who is betrothed to Christ, her only spouse, a Christian woman who is being joined to a Christian man in marriage receives a veil from the hands of the Church as a sign of her new state.

                The blessing paints a picture of a Christian wife, setting the holy women of the Old Testament before her as models, while at the same time seeing the marriage in the perspective both of GENESIS and of the marriage of CHRIST and the CHURCH, and asking the grace of fruitfulness for the new wife. What a typology!

                The nuptial blessing was traditionally given during Mass before the celebrant’s Pax Domini (“Lord Jesus you said to your apostles…) and the Kiss of Peace, which he gave to the husband (at least safe) and the husband to the wife (and not the other way around). From Rome and Milan, the nuptial blessing passed into Southern Gaul and subsequently made its way elsewhere as the Roman Rite was adopted. 

2. Benedictio in Thalamo. The most widespread form of marriage liturgy in Gaul and the Celtic countries consisted in a blessing of the spouses in the BRIDAL CHAMBER. The priest or bishop was invited to give the blessing to the spouses in the bridal chamber.

                Spain was also familiar with 2 gestures that would be taken over in the medieval rituals:

                A. The giving of the bride to the groom (traditio puellae) by the priest in the place and name of the father, and,

                B. The Ordo arrharum, which was the result of the importance attached to the betrhotal.

                The betrothal included the giving of pledges, a dowry (arrhae sponsaliciae) to the girl’s family and was the occasion for a blessing. The engaged couple brought two rings to the priest, the prayer which followed  was both a blessing of the rings and an invocation of God’s favor on the couple. The betrothal is sealed by the exchange of a kiss. The Church also recognized the family rites of betrothal but played no part in them.

• iii. Christian marriage from the 11^th century until vatican ii

1. The beginning of the 11^th century saw the SECULAR RITE turned into a LITURGICAL ACTION that was celebrated immediately BEFORE MASS (specifically before the Liturgy of the Eucharist), but outside the Church, in facie ecclesiae. It is the rite of betrothal which became part of the rite of marriage but in facie ecclesiae.

2. The betrothal precedes the Mass, coming immediately before the wedding Mass. The gathering went INTO the Church ONLY FOR THE EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION and the BLESSING. It, thus, marked the GRADUAL TRANSFER of the discipline of marriage and the regulations of the ceremonies TO THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH.

3. As early as 9^th and 10^th centuries, synods and capitularies demanded that marriage be celebrated IN PUBLIC (public character) to ensure the woman’s FREE consent;  they insisted that the spouses must receive the NUPTIAL BLESSING and that priests must make a prior PRE-NUPTIAL INVESTIGATION (interview and banns).

4. In order to ensure the PUBLIC CHARACTER OF MARRIAGE, the old rite of the blessing in  thalamo (blessing at the bridal chamber) was revived in Normandy and spread through the whole of France. On the evening of the marriage, the priest blessed the spouses themselves as well as the bridal chamber and the wedding ring, even if the couple had not received a blessing in the Church on that day.

5. In 1012, the Synod of Rouen forbade the practice and called for the blessing and the marriage rite to be celebrated IN A CHURCH (not in bridal chamber). This did not, however, prevent the blessing in  thalamo (blessing at the bridal chamber) from being continued, but it now lacked any juridical or sacramental value.

6. In order to give maximum PUBLICITY to the exchange of consents, it was decided that it should NO LONGER take place in HOME of the bride but at the DOOR OF THE CHURCH, in facie ecclesiae.

7. Only the joining of right hands (dexterarum iunctio) had belonged specifically to the ancient ceremonies of marriage proper, but this gesture is no longer understood as the giving of the young girl to the bridegroom (traditio puellae)  by the pronuba. It is seen rather as a symbol of the RECIPROCAL giving of the spouses to each other, a giving that also finds expression in the exchange of consent. The expression could be reduced to a “YES”  in response to questions asked by the priest.

               

 

8. In the 11^th century, the part played by the spouses caused  the original priest to be forgotten. His function had been to supervise the giving of the young girl to the bridegroom (traditio puellae)  in the PLACE and NAME of the girl’s father, that is, to ensure the husbands freedom of consent in cases of a marriage being forced by the parents.

                Such was the original meaning of the words “ego coniungo vos” ( “I acknowledge it as valid and legitimate”) of the priest’s action of joining the couple’s hands.

9. In 1563, the Council of Trent, was the first to require canonical form for validity, the appearance of the couple before their own parish priest as provided in the decree Tametsi.

10. In 1614 Roman Ritual (known as the Ritual of Paul V), emphasized the role of the priest at the expense of that couple. It also called for the rite to take place before the celebration of the Mass IN THE CHURCH and no longer in facie ecclesiae.

• conclusion

1. As seen, there are three important stages in the development of the rite of Christian marriage through the centuries until Vatican II:

                A. Marriage in the family home until the 11^th century, with the first intervention of the priest being the Mass and the blessing of the bride;

                B. Marriage in facie ecclesiae in the 11^th century, the first clear evidence of the rite of the sacrament itself, followed by the Mass and nuptial blessing already used before;

                C. The rite introduced by Vatican II: the celebration of the sacrament after the Liturgy of the Word, the nuptial blessing which is now addressed to both spouses, and an epiclesis of more recent introduction.

2. The study of the history of the rite would hopefully leads us to better appreciate not only the THEOLOGY of the Sacrament of Marriage but also its CELEBRATION and the elements that have formed part of the rite in the course of HISTORY. Remember, HISTORIA MAGISTRA!