Marriage in Elizabethan England
Mary Purnell
The values of Elizabethan marriage descended from those of medieval marriage, which were loose and validated by verbal consent, alone. But these values were jammed into the social and legal frame of a society that was much more interested in contracts and transactions than its medieval predecessor. The result was a culture of contractual marriage. Henry Swinburne (d. 1623) wrote an entire rulebook on what constitutes a valid marital union, published posthumously and entitled A Treatise of Spousals (1686). According to Swinburne’s Treatise, the rules during his lifetime were pretty much identical to what they were in the fourteenth century. The validity of a marriage depended entirely on consent from both parties, and that consent could come in one of two forms: an agreement made in the present (e.g. “I am yours”), or a promise of future commitment (e.g. “I will marry you tomorrow”) followed by consummation of the marriage through sex. Swinburne refers to these as “simple” and “conditional spousals,” respectively (109).
Henry Swinburne’s book, useful and entertaining as it is, is also rather alarming. He uses the word “contract” as a substitute for “marriage” innumerable times, picking apart every possible verbal commitment (or non-commitment) to determine whether or not it indeed constitutes matrimony. Swinburne evidences the contractual nature of early modern marriage in this lawyer-like approach to the institution. In one chapter, he maps out every possible scenario for a legitimate marriage in flowchart form:
(“Simple and Conditional Contracts, &c,” [graphic] / Henry Swinburne, 1686)
The past and present contracts – the “simple spousals” – start and end at tier one. The “contractual spousals” are where things get complicated, and the nuances that account for “secretly understood” consent are unimaginable in modern legal marriages. What we see here is a hybrid culture of matrimony that retains the fluidity of medieval marriage, but is moving towards a much more financially- and politically-oriented attitude towards the institution.
Actual marital contracts were being drawn up with increasing frequency in the arrangement of middle- and upper-class marriages, and there was always an economic angle. Alison Wall points out that some families hired marriage negotiators to maximize their profits from the union (514). Dowries were expected. In fact, women who couldn’t pay their way into marriage typically couldn’t get married at all. Small though they were, dowries were a custom even among England’s poorest.
It’s little wonder that, in light of this culture of buying marriage and drawing up contracts, many early modern relationships didn’t measure up to the idealized “perfect union.” Of course, that’s not to say that all medieval marriages were happy – they weren’t. But Elizabethan England had something that medieval England didn’t: the printing press. Combine the relative ease of communication brought from print culture with unsatisfactory marriages, and marriage becomes a social topic of discussion.
Soon, a genre of instructional books was born. These provided advice to young couples in an effort to steer them toward more virtuous, Christian marriages. Typically, these instructional manuals were geared towards the “weaker sex”: women. You can read more about these handbooks by following the link above.