Should Christians Attend a Same-Sex Wedding?

Here is Dr. Mohler's answer from his book We Cannot Be Silent. All punctuation and emphasis is his.

Attending a wedding ceremony always signals moral approval. This is why The Book of Common Prayer (which has provided the traditional ceremonial language known to millions of people throughout the centuries) contains the phrase that asks if anyone knows any cause that should prevent the marriage-"speak now; or else forever hold your peace." These words reveal the historic function of the wedding ceremony as a gathering of celebrants who come together to grant moral approval to the union of two people in marriage. Attending a same-sex marriage ceremony is to grant a positive and public moral judgment to the union. At some point, that attendance will involve congratulating the couple for their union. There will be no way to claim moral neutrality when congratulating a couple upon their wedding. If you cannot congratulate the couple, how can you attend? 

Gender is a Cage

George Gilder wrote the following paragraphs in 1986.

To the sexual liberal, gender is a cage. Behind cruel bars of custom and tradition, men and women for centuries have looked longingly across forbidden spaces at one another and yearned to be free of sexual roles. The men dream of nurturing and consoling; the women want to be tough and child free. Today it is widely believed that the dream of escape can come at last. 

This belief leads to a program of mixing the sexes in every possible way, at every stage of life. In nurseries and schools, in athletics and home economics, in sex education and social life, the sexes are thrown together in the continuing effort to create a unisex society. But the results are rarely as expected, and the policies are mostly founded on confusion.

Some of the confusions arise in the schools, where the androgynous agenda has made the greatest apparent headway and its effects can best be studied. It turns out what seems elemental to many expert educationists is actually bizarre from the long perspective of history and anthropology

Until recent years, for example, most American parochial schools have kept strict sexual segregation. The boys and girls joined chiefly on ceremonial occasions-assemblies and graduations. Even the playground was divided into male and female territories. The restrictions were lifted only during carefully supervised dances, when young couples made their way chastely around the floor of the gym under the watchful eyes of nuns. Any unseemly body contact brought a swift reprimand: "Leave six inches for the Holy Ghost."

There is no room for the Holy Ghost any longer at most of our schools. The bodies and minds rub together from kindergarten to graduate study. The result is perfectly predictable. Sexual activity occurs at an increasingly younger age. In communities where the family cannot  impose discipline, illegitimate children are common. Classrooms become an intensely sexual arena, where girls and boys perform for the attention of the other sex and where unintellectual males quickly come to view schoolbooks as a menace to manhood.

He closes the chapter with these words:

In the United States and Western Europe girls and boys are expected to traffic together intimately for years before they can marry. They are subjected to intense sexual distractions and competitions during the critical stages of their educations. They are brought up in a society where sex is continuously advertised and propagandized.

The result is that boys and girls are driven into periods of sexual experimentation and stress unparalleled in length or intensity by other societies. One aspect of sex is drastically downplayed, however, and that is the most important, fundamental, and sexually differentiated part-procreation. 

Thus the American system of increasingly far-reaching sexual integration vividly teaches the lesson that boys and girls are sexually similar and that sex is a matter of exchanging pleasures between them in a reciprocal way. This approach is inimical [hostile] to durable love and marriage. The boys do not learn to venerate the procreative powers of women, and the girls stunt their own consciousness of a more elaborate sexuality. Thus, in effect, despite the feminized regimen of many schools, in sex itself-the domain of women- masculine patterns prevail and both sexes are diminished.

The advocates of sexual integration, moreover, seem ready to stop at virtually nothing-not sex education classes, not sports, not even, so it seems, the ultimate male arena of military combat.

Stephen Clark in Man and Woman in Christ says that boys and girls spend more time together now than at any previous point in human history. What impact does that have on their emotional, physical, and spiritual development? Gilder's point throughout this chapter is that we have created an androgynous society where men and women are interchangeable and integrated across the board. They are educated in the same rooms and in the same way. They work in the same fields. They play on the same sports teams. They play the same sports. They both are encouraged to pursue careers. There is no incentive to marry, raise children, and establish a family. Men are not encouraged to provide because after all the wife (or lover or girlfriend or mom) can provide just as well. Women are not encouraged to use their young years to do the great work of  bearing children. Instead they are encouraged to spend the younger years pursuing money, status, and freedom. And of course, the men are happy to let them, as long they get an occasional favor.

Since Gilder wrote this things have only gotten worse. Can we tell boys and girls they are the same from daycare to graduate school and then expect boys to become men and girls to become women? Why are we shocked by Jenner, sodomy, lesbianism, and transgender bathrooms when for decades we have taught that men and women are interchangeable? The slow, steady obliteration of male and female is the goal of our society. This goal is fueled by a slow, steady rebellion against God. Unfortunately many churches and Christians have bought into it. Why do so many churches, denominations, and Christians raise their sons and daughters as if they are the same? Until we acknowledge that men and women are different and train our children that way we will continue to lose the battle on sexuality.

Book Review: How to Exasperate Your Wife

How To Exasperate Your Wife and Other Short Essays for Men by Douglas Wilson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A short, great book for men who have a twisted view of headship, which means most of us. His chapter on tenderness was excellent as was the sexuality catechism as the back. I am not sure why he included the essays on sex in heaven. They were fine essays, but felt a bit out of place. Other than that the book is wonderful.

View all my reviews

Ten Quotes: How to Exasperate Your Wife by Doug Wilson

Here are ten of my favorite quotes from Douglas Wilson's book How to Exasperate Your Wife. 

A man who ditches the actual wife of his youth is thereby revealing that he abandoned another woman (Wisdom) some time before. 

If her [the wife's] wishes are routinely disregarded, this means that her husband has failed to invest her with his authority, and has failed to act as an example for the rest of the household. A sure indicator of an unhappy household is the ignoring of Mom, and the head of that home is an abdicating father.

No one person is absolute. And this why those husbands who think that headship means their wives should never offer a contrary view are wrong. This is why husbands who think their wives cannot require certain things of them are wrong. This is why husbands who believe that their wives have no court of appeal outside the marriage are wrong.  

 Few forms of behavior are less respectable than that of demanding respect. 

A man who gives love receives respect.

A man who is not strong enough to be tender is not strong at all...We tend to think that a man who yells and blusters and intimidates has an excess of strength. We think he has a surplus. But biblically understood, he is actually a covenant wimp.

A nation defended by her women is a nation no longer worth defending. When women are placed in the front line of defense, every Christian man should walk away from the cause of that nation as being beneath contempt.

The basic question here is whether law operates in the context of grace, or whether grace operates in the surrounding context of law. If the former, then marriage is delight upon delight. If the latter, then it is one conflict after another. In these two different marriages, the objective standards may be exactly the same, but they are played in different keys.  

The progression towards adultery moves like this-simmering discontent, open discontent, open desire in other directions, which is lust, and then lust acted out, with infidelity as the result. Now a man might be able to convince himself that he is not being unfaithful in the first two stages-he is not being aroused, and he is not actively seeking that kind of gratification. His problem doesn't appear to him to be overtly sexual at all. But that's a set up. Don't feed the kind of discontent that will, later on, feed something else. 

What is biblical masculinity? It is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility.

And one:

What is the confessional issue of our time? The confessional issue of our time is human sexuality, biblically defined.  

"I Now Take Thee" Weddings in Calvin's Geneva

Here is my next to final post on Kingdon and Witte's book on marriage in Geneva. At the bottom of this post you can find the other articles.

Eloping or getting married without a public wedding ceremony has become a trend of late. As the value of our wedding vows have diminished through divorce and fornication so too have wedding themselves become passe. Weddings are still big business, but many couples are choosing to avoid ceremonies all together.  In Geneva there was no eloping. 

In Geneva "Marriages without weddings were invalid."  You could not be married without a public ceremony presided over by the pastor and witnessed by the congregation. "Marriages that had been secretly contracted or improperly celebrated elsewhere had to be announced and celebrated anew in a church wedding in Geneva." The couple, the church, and the magistrate all had to consent to the marriage before the wedding was performed. Here was the process:

Once the couple got engaged they had six weeks to get married. If they did not get married within six weeks they would be called in to give an account for the delay. 

They would take a set of "banns" to get signed by the magistrate. Banns were "written announcements of the pending wedding." This announced had to be approved by the city of Geneva. 

Assuming the magistrate signed the banns they would be read in church for three consecutive Sundays. This would give anyone who had an objection a chance to bring a halt to the wedding or at least post-pone it. 

The wedding could be celebrated any day the congregation gathered to hear the Word preached. Preaching happened several times a week. So the couple was not restricted to Sundays, though Sunday weddings were common. Weddings were performed prior to the worship service. 

On the day of the wedding, the bride if she was a virgin wore a veil. She could also wear a wreath of flowers unless she had committed fornication with the groom. The groom and groomsmen would go to the bride's house and collect the bride and the bridesmaids. The bride would have flowers as would the bridesmaids. They would march two by two to the church with the groomsmen in front, the bride and groom in between, and the bridesmaids last. The congregation would assemble at church with the wedding party waiting at the door. When the minister got up front the wedding party would enter. The wedding would then be performed followed by a worship service. Following worship the couple would then go to the groom's home for a celebration. 

"Public wedding ceremonies could be followed by private wedding parties, provided the parties were modest in size and moderate in decorum. Wedding hosts and guests found guilty of excessive dancing, drinking, and debauchery faced firm spiritual and civil sanctions." 

The authors say this, "A central point of Calvin's marriage theology [was] that marriages were at once public and private, spiritual and temporal, ecclesiastical and political in nature."

The Same

The similarities between this and modern weddings is striking. Engagement. Announcement. Wedding in a church presided over by a minister. Reception/Private party after the wedding. Approval before or after the wedding by church, state, and often the family. Even though wedding services are not attached to worship like they were in Calvin's time, they usually include a sermon. All in all the flow is similar to conventional weddings. 

Differences

However there are also some differences to note. 

First, engagements were very short. This was designed to prevent premarital sex. But it probably also curbed excessive spending. 

Second, it is interesting that the women wore different things based whether or not they were a virgin or had fornicated with the groom to be. In previous post I noted that if a couple slept together before marriage they had to confess that sin at their wedding. Only a virgin could wear a veil. Even a widow who was remarrying could not wear a veil. 

Third, I really like it that the groom goes and gets the bride. While our tradition has the groom not seeing the bride before she comes down the aisle, the symbolism of the groom getting the bride is more Biblical. I am not sure how that would work practically in our culture and time, but the idea is cool. 

Fourth, while in our times families, churches, and the government all have a say in marriage there is not the unity between these parties that there was in Geneva. We have no consensus on what marriage even is, much less who should enter into it. This means different groups are often pitted against one another. The state might say a marriage is fine while the parents and church say no. I want to look more carefully at this intersection of marriage, family, church, and government. 

I have one more post on Calvin's wedding liturgy. 

Previous Posts

General Overview of the Book
An Overview of Marriage Prior to Calvin
Calvin's Attack on Marriage as a Sacrament
Consent to Marriage in Geneva
The Desire for Reconciliation Instead of Divorce
The Power of the Consistory in Geneva
Courtship in Geneva
Coercion to and Conditions of Marriage in Geneva
Parental Consent to Marriage in Geneva
Impediments to Marriage in Geneva
Economics of Marriage in Geneva
Premarital Sex in Geneva
Desertion in Geneva

A Theologian of the Cross and the Same Sex Mirage

I just read Carl Trueman's Luther and the Christian Life. I highly recommend it. One of Luther's key ideas was that we need "theologians of the cross." That is people who understand that God works not through power and might, but through weakness, pain, and suffering. He saved us through the death of His Son on a cross as a criminal. Glory came through suffering and weakness. That is the way God works. Yesterday and today we have seen a power play by our Supreme Court. But it is a mirage. True power is not found in black robes and judges. So what should we do? How should we rise up against this tyranny?  Where is the true revolution? What does a cross shaped response look like in response to the Supreme Court's ruling? I think Luther would approve of this list because most of it is Christianity 101, which is not surprising since our marching orders do not change.

Worship God every Sunday. No matter what. Be there with God's people. Sit underneath the mighty Word. Hear again the old, old story. Do not lose confidence in the ordinary means of grace.  A theologian of the cross knows that true power is found in the sanctuary where the Lord is worshiped, the Word is preached, water is poured, and the supper is celebrated.

Don't forget the gospel. Plead the shed blood of Christ. You are a vile, wicked person. Your sins are many and great. But Christ is greater. He has removed them. Be at peace. All of your sins are forgiven in Christ. They are vile, wicked sinners. Their only hope is Jesus Christ and His blood. If we forget the gospel what will we have to offer them when they cry, "What shall we do?" (Acts 2:37)

Sing the Psalms. The time for impotent songs is over. We have been at war, but we forgot and our swords gathered rust. Now the enemy has burst through the wall and we are waking up. We need Psalm 2, Psalm 3, Psalm 9, and Psalm 56. Okay we need them all.

Read the Bible again and again. Believe every word it says without apology. Teach it to your children.

Be bold. Do not fear the world. A theologian of the cross knows that death, their greatest threat, is our greatest triumph. Why fear them when the most they can do is usher us into glory?

Be prepared to suffer. Following Christ will now cost. Rejoice when your reputation is ruined, you lose your job, friends reject you, and you are run out of town. You are starting to catch up with the prophets (Matthew 5:12) and your brothers and sisters around the world.

Love sinners, including homosexuals, but do not expect them to feel loved. Sinners do not love those who call them to repent. But love them anyway. Overcome evil with good.

If you are in a church that is compromising on human sexuality or is silent about it, leave. The ship is sinking. It is time to get off.

If you are in a church that refuses to call it members to repent, leave.  Without repentance in here, there will be no repentance out there.

If you are in a church that refuses to call sinners out there to repent, leave. You cannot worship Jesus without repentance. A church that does not call the culture to repent is a church that is not preaching Jesus.

Learn what the doctrine of lesser magistrate is. We need politicians with the balls to say no to our Federal government. We need men who will take the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court and burn it in the street. Here is a good place to start.

Pray for your leaders (I Timothy 2:1-2).

Marry someone of the opposite sex. Stay married.  Make love. Have children. Raise them in the Lord.

Remain cheerful. Life is a comedy. If God can laugh (Psalm 2:4) then so can we. In the end, all will be well.

Rick Phillips on Singleness, Marriage, and Divorce

Here are some short, but good posts by Rick Phillips where he answers some specific questions he received at a recent conference. While I would not agree with every jot and tittle, the main teaching is solid.

In this post he addresses why there are so many singles if marriage is so important. All four points are good, but the first one is excellent.

Here he addresses dating a non-virgin. It is a balanced post showing that sexual purity is a goal, but dating (or for me courting) a non-virgin is not automatically a bad thing. I think this is important because in some ways we have made sexual sin a permanent stain. Past sexual sins should be discussed, but the key is the person's current relationship with Christ, not their past transgressions.

Here he addresses the Biblical grounds for divorce. The post is not ground breaking, but it does give a succinct presentation of what I think is the Biblical teaching on divorce.

Finally, he addresses whether or not Christians should get civil marriage licenses. Again solid teaching here.

Cold Feet in Calvin's Geneva

I am continuing to work through Kingdon and Witte's book on marriage in Geneva. At the bottom of this post you can find the other articles.

In a previous post I looked at what happens when people get too excited about marriage and up sleeping together before their wedding. As with all periods of history, this problem was common Geneva. However, there was another issue that Geneva faced that is not a problem in 21st Century America; desertion before marriage. This is not an issue today because engagement is binding. If a couple is engaged, it is assumed they will get married. But if they do not wish to get married all they have to do is break off the engagement.  Nothing more is needed. 

However, in Geneva an engagement was almost as binding as a marriage. Someone could not simply say, "I do not want to get married" and then dissolve the engagement. But just as people slept together before marriage in all ages, in all ages men and women get nervous when it comes to finally saying, "I do." Kingdon and Witte say it like this:

The opposite problem of premarital sex was premarital desertion. Some engaged parties got "cold feet" in anticipation of their marriage and took flight from Geneva, with or without explanation. Others had to be away during their engagement for business, to answer court summons, to visit family or friends, or to serve in the military, and then were detained, imprisoned, sick, or died. Still other engaged parties were whisked away by parents or occasionally by former lovers or spouses who did not want to them to marry their new beloved. This was a day of relatively poor communications and public recording keeping in a city with a transient population. Was desertion an impediment that could break the engagement contract? How long was a deserted party to wait before being free to pursue another? What procedures should be followed to inoculate an innocent party against polygamy charges if the deserter later returned and challenged a second engagement or marriage contract? 

The seriousness of desertion was amplified by the seriousness of engagement. It took the equivalent of divorce proceedings to get out of an engagement. Geneva had specific regulations guiding how desertion was handled in their Marriage Ordinance of 1546. Here are the guidelines. I am summarizing and not quoting directly.

1. If an engaged man has disappeared without prior knowledge and it appears that he has done so from bad motives, there is to attempt made to contact him and ask him to return and get married by a certain date.

2. If he has not returned by the set date, the church is to proclaim from its pulpit that he must appear This is to be proclaimed three times, every other week for six consecutive weeks. If at that time he still has not returned the wife is free and the man is "banished for disloyalty."

3. If he has good reason to be gone, such as business, and informs the wife-to-be of his trip, she is to wait one year before "proceeding against him for his absence." If a year passes and he has not returned then she can proceed as above. The situation here is a man leaves on business and is gone longer than expected. She tries to contact him, but cannot get in touch with him. She is to wait one year before breaking off the engagement.  This might also have been in place to prevent the wife at home from getting excited about another suitor and breaking off the engagement prematurely.

4. The husband was to follow the same procedure, except he did not have to wait a year, unless he had given her permission to depart.

5. If anyone, such as a parent or friend, helps an engaged person escape the city so as to avoid the impending marriage they shall be punished and shall make all efforts to get the engaged person back to Geneva.

Beyond these rules Calvin said very little about desertion. He did allow for a wife to divorce if her husband deserted her citing I Corinthians 7:12-16.  Kingdon and Witte note:

Calvin did allow wives to desert chronically abusive husbands who posed grave threats to their bodies and souls, provided that these women gave adequate notice of their intentions. If Calvin allowed wives to desert in these cases, he doubtless would have condoned it even more readily for fiancees. 

Beza, Calvin's successor at Geneva, made the desertion laws more strict. In particular, he created a greater disparity between how long men had to wait and women had to wait. Some think the longer waiting period for women was to make sure they were not pregnant.

Geneva's laws regarding desertion do not have much application to current engagements because our engagements are not binding. However, their desertion laws might shed some light on how to handle desertion in marriage. There are differences between engagement and marriage, but what constitutes desertion is hotly debated today. How long does it take before a spouse is considered a deserter? At what point can a marriage be dissolved when one partner has left?  Has the deserted party done what they can to reconcile?  Clarity on questions like these and many others could be aided by looking at how Geneva handled those who ran from their promise to marry.

Previous Posts
General Overview of the Book
An Overview of Marriage Prior to Calvin
Calvin's Attack on Marriage as a Sacrament
Consent to Marriage in Geneva
The Desire for Reconciliation Instead of Divorce
The Power of the Consistory in Geneva
Courtship in Geneva
Coercion to and Conditions of Marriage in Geneva
Parental Consent to Marriage in Geneva
Impediments to Marriage in Geneva
Economics of Marriage in Geneva
Premarital Sex in Geneva

Tyrants and Kicking Posts

Correct doctrine does not inoculate against sin. Just because the right things are taught sin will not magically disappear. It is easy to believe that if we just teach some biblically grounded view of courtship then all we have to do is set those two young ones lose, following our courtship rules, and all will be well. Or if we have the right liturgy then the parishioners will automatically become more righteous. Or if we teach our daughters modesty then all will be well and on and on. The trouble with this perspective is that the problem with sin is rarely knowledge. Sin lives within us. Whatever system we have (and some are better than others) we bring our sin into it. Many pastors and parents, myself included, function as if we just teach the right doctrine then sanctification is automatic. But it isn't. And this why a pastor must preach to his people, not just the right doctrine, but the dangers that come with the right doctrine.

In our church we teach headship and submission. It is a biblical concept. It is one of the key issues of our day, along with numerous other male/female, husband/wife issues. But teaching headship and submission is not a vaccine against headship submission sins. In fact, someone can believe in headship and submission and have a terrible, unbiblical marriage. Here are two specific sins that crop up when a church teaches headship.

Tyrants
There will be men who are drawn to this teaching because they are tyrants. They use headship as a shield for accountability. They love headship because they think it means they get to do whatever they want. My wife is my servant and I am the master. These men are often over-controlling, easily offended, lack real accountability, think their children are too good for anyone else, etc. They keep their wife really close by because who knows what will happen if she drifts. They speak in terms of protection, but what they really want is control. They speak of their sins in generic terms instead of specifics. They are good at cultural critique, but not good at self-critique.

There is no magic bullet for this type of man. But two things can help. The wife needs to know that she can come directly to the elders if her husband is involved in grievous sins. In fact, she has a moral obligation to do so. This can of course, be misused by petty, bitter wives. But I would rather a wife come to the session and the session say, "No it is not a big deal" than her hide a sin because she does not want to "undermine her head." In our membership interviews we tell congregants that we teach headship and submission. But we also tell the wife that she has direct access to the session. She does not need her husband's permission to come to us if there are sins he is refusing to deal with. It can be hard to know when to come to the session, especially in a church where supporting your husband is important. The session needs to create an open avenue for women to come to them if there is a problem in their marriage.

Second, the men need to be held accountable by the session. Tyrants hate accountability. A tyrant will have other men involved in his life, but they will not be men who can actually hold him accountable. They will have friends or younger men they can teach, but no one who teaches them. A man who refuses to allow other men, who can hold him accountable, into his life is functioning as a tyrant.

Kicking Posts
The second type of problem you get in churches that teach headship is men who don't want to lead or don't have the courage to lead their homes, but they want to look like they are leading their homes. In these situations the wife is the one running the show. But she will do everything she can to make sure no one knows that and so will the husband. In public they will say and do all the right things,  The husband will talk about leading his family. The wife will talk about following her husband and how much she listens to him. But the reality is that the wife is one setting the direction of the family. She is the one constantly bringing up doctrinal issues or church issues that must be discussed because they are so important. She is the one suggesting courses of action. The husband is reacting to his wife not leading her. This woman, especially in churches that teach headship and submission, will often be quiet and compliant. She is not going to destroy her image with outbursts. But in the walls of her home she is the boss. As a pastor friend says, "The rooster rules the roost, but the hen rules the rooster." If there is a problem in the home the wife will use her husband's headship as a shield for her own sins. And the husband will allow this to happen.

As with the tyrant, there is no easy answer for this type of a scenario. A man being sweetly pushed around by his wife will often rise up for a moment and try to lead, usually when someone challenges him. But he will eventually be put back in his place. The trouble here for ministers is that no one likes to make women mad. Few people get as angry as a Christian woman called out for her sins by a male minister. But if the pastor does not have the courage to stand up to women then how can the husband do it? There are few problems as intractable as this pretend headship. The best a minister can do is urge the men to Christ-like leadership, call upon the women who have usurped their husbands to repent of their sins, preach the Word, and pray. I was talking to a long-time minister about this issue and asked him if he had ever seen a situation like this fixed. He said no, not without devastating consequences. I won't say it is hopeless. Nothing is with Christ, His Spirit, and the Word. But the evidence is slim that couples can get out of this cycle.

Conclusion
Every marriage will exhibit these sins from time to time. No husband is excluded from being a tyrant. No wife is excluded from usurping her husband from time to time. Leading without being a tyrant is hard to do. Making suggestions to your husband without taking the reins from him is hard as well. So how do we work on this? The main requirement for escaping either cycle is to believe those paragraphs could describe you. If a man does not believe he could be a tyrant or doesn't believe he could be pushed around by his wife and if a wife does not believe she could ever run the show through subtle manipulation then all hope of change is lost. As with most things, the beginning of change is the terrible realization: that picture which I hate might be a self-portrait.

Unequal Yokes in Calvin's Geneva

I am continuing to work through Kingdon and Witte's book on marriage in Geneva. At the bottom of this post you can find the other articles.

In chapter 10, the authors examine Geneva's approach to mixed religious marriages. Should a Christian marry a non-Christian? Should a Protestant marry a Catholic? Could a recent convert to the Protestant faith leave their Catholic spouse? Here is their summary of Calvin's teaching:

First, Protestants should not marry Catholics, Orthodox, Jews, Muslims, or unbelievers. Those who sought to enter into such mixed marriages should be strongly dissuaded, though they could not ultimately be prevented from marriage.  Second, parties who were already in mixed marriages, or whose spouse lapsed from the faith after the wedding, should remain together. Those who sought to escape such mixed marriages should be strongly dissuaded, though they could not ultimately be prevented from separating from a spouses whose abuse imperiled the body and soul of the believer. Though none of this teaching on interreligious  marriage found its way into Genevan statutes, the Consistory applied this law consistently throughout Calvin's lifetime.

The authors note that Calvin was asked whether it was okay for a Protestant to marry a Catholic. Calvin said it was a sin, but such marriages were not absolutely forbidden. He preferred to deal with questions like this on a case by case basis. How strong was the Catholic? Were they drifting towards Protestantism? Would they castigate the Protestant spouse for refusing to take Mass? He did not lay down many hard and fast rules on this issue because there were so many variables.

Perhaps the greatest deterrent to mixed marriages was how hard it was to get out of them. Divorce was not acceptable. Using I Corinthians 7:12-16 as the key passage, Calvin taught that even if one of the spouses was not a believer, the home was still sanctified through the believing spouse. Therefore, there was no need to divorce. Unless a person's life was threatened or the spouse refused to live with them if they did not convert, there was no reason for divorce.

A couple of mixed religious convictions could get married. Their marriage was legitimate. There was no annulment based on religious preferences. Nor could religious differences be an impediment to marriage. However, if a couple married against the wishes of the Consistory they could be banned from the Lord's Supper. Their marriage was a real marriage, but it might not be a Christian marriage.

This teaching in Geneva was in stark contrast to the Roman Catholic teaching of the time, which stated that, since marriage was a sacrament, it was only valid between two baptized believers.

Of all the teaching at Geneva that I have read about this is the hardest to sort out. But I understand why. Marriage is not just for Christians. It is for all men. Two Muslims can marry. Two atheists can marry. A Christian and a Muslim can marry. But marriage to a non-Christian or even a Christian with very different views is difficult and hard.  Geneva tried to strike a balance between declaring mixed marriage not marriages at all and sanctioning mixed marriages.

Previous Posts
General Overview of the Book
An Overview of Marriage Prior to Calvin
Calvin's Attack on Marriage as a Sacrament
Consent to Marriage in Geneva
The Desire for Reconciliation Instead of Divorce
The Power of the Consistory in Geneva
Courtship in Geneva
Coercion to and Conditions of Marriage in Geneva
Parental Consent to Marriage in Geneva
Impediments to Marriage in Geneva

Impediments to Marriage in Calvin's Geneva

I am continuing to work through Kingdon and Witte's book on marriage in Geneva. Here are all the posts I have done so far.

General Overview of the Book
An Overview of Marriage Prior to Calvin
Calvin's Attack on Marriage as a Sacrament
Consent to Marriage in Geneva
The Desire for Reconciliation Instead of Divorce
The Power of the Consistory in Geneva
Courtship in Geneva
Coercion to and Conditions of Marriage in Geneva
Parental Consent to Marriage in Geneva

There is some repetition in the posts, but working through them will give you some idea of how a leading city during the Reformation and her most famous citizen approached the events leading up to marriage and marriage itself.

A new concept to me in this book was that of impediments to marriage. It means exactly what it sounds like: reasons that prevent someone from getting married or can be used to annul an engagement or marriage. Chapters 6-9 cover various impediments to marriage. Here they are in my own words:

1. Children who have not reached puberty could not marry.
2. The insane or mentally impaired could not marry.
3. Someone engaged to one person could not marry another.  This was polygamy.
4. Lack of presumed virginity could prevent a marriage.
5. Contagious & incurable disease that would be passed on to the spouse and children could prevent marriage.
6. Men or women incapable of having sex could not marry.
7. Wide disparity in age could also prevent marriage.
8. People too closely related (incest) could not marry.

I am not going to work through all of the material in the book, but I wanted to bring up a few points from the reading.

First, impediments to marriage were taken very seriously.  Our criteria for who can marry who is lazily thought out. All you need is love. Whatever that is. But for Calvin marriage required certain things. Without those you could not get married. In our age, what, other than lack of consent, is an impediment to marriage?

Second, a physical, sexual relationship that was expected to produce children was necessary to contract marriage. #1, #5, and #6 are all grounded in this idea. #2 and #7 could sometimes be grounded on this same idea. Children could not marry because they could not have sex and produce children. There was no such thing as a marriage of the heart where sex and the possibility of children were not included. Sexual dysfunction was a serious issue. If it was discovered after marriage that the person (usually the man) lied about their ability to have sex, the marriage could be annulled. However, if the reason for the dysfunction occurred after marriage, such as a man being castrated in battle while married, then the marriage could not be annulled. What is meant here, by the way, is the ability to have sex, not the guarantee of producing children. If a couple could have sex, but ended up not being able to have children there was nothing to be done about that.

Third, lying about your virginity or losing your virginity while engaged was a serious issue. People married non-virgins all the time. This was important, but not a huge deal. However, claiming to be a virgin and not actually being one, was considered a breach of contract. Losing your virginity to someone other than who you were engaged to while engaged was adultery and could result in death. A marriage could be annulled if a spouse found out after marriage that their partner had claimed to be a virgin and was not. However, an engaged couple losing their virginity to each other was fornication, not adultery. Geneva was not a huge town by today's standards. Gossip got around, even from neighboring states and communities. If a man had slept with a woman prior to marriage it was best for him to tell his potential wife than have it come up after they were married.

Fourth, the disease impediment is interesting. A disease that was contagious and incurable prevented a person from marrying. However, if the disease was contracted after marriage the marriage could not be annulled. If there was a serious and repulsive physical problem contracted during engagement, but not contagious the couple could still marry. However, the engagement could also be broken. Often, this involved men coming back from war greatly disfigured or men who were seriously injured in an accident. Simply being hurt, even severely, such as blindness, did not guarantee that an engagement could be annulled. The Consistory and Geneva's courts had to approve it. Despite the detailed laws governing this, it was rarely an issue in Geneva.

Fifth, disparity of age was a hotly contested impediment. Understand that by disparity of age we are talking about at least ten years difference and in many cases, much more. For example, Farel, a fellow pastor of Calvin's, married someone forty years younger. Calvin felt for various reasons that those much older should not be allowed to marry those much younger. Younger men would often marry an older widow with money. Calvin felt this situation would keep the young man from leading his household. An older man marrying a young woman, Calvin felt, was driven by lust instead of by what was good for the young lady. However, Geneva did not entirely agree with Calvin on this. Age disparity alone was usually not enough to call off an engagement for the Consistory, though it would have been enough for Calvin. Another problem, usually involving money, had to be raised before the marriage was called off.

Sixth, notice that the period of engagement was essentially like marriage. An engaged person who tried to get engaged to a second person was accused of polygamy. If a person did end up marrying someone else while engaged to another party this was adultery and could end in death. Sleeping with someone other than the one you were engaged to was not fornication, but adultery. Here is why engagements were limited to six weeks in Geneva. Beyond that period the couple was called in to account for the delay.

Finally, the laws governing who could marry were remarkably unromantic. Love, that is a warm feeling for someone else, was not enough to get married.  In our day, if you love someone, anyone, (several someones?) then marriage is a right. In Geneva, it was not because there were Biblical and natural laws which fenced in marriage. You could not get through the gate without certain boxes being checked. For example, if you were physically attracted to a man and got engage, but he went off to war and his face was disfigured you could call off the engagement. To us this sounds mean.  However, Geneva's laws seem to face reality with less of flinch than we do. Geneva knew that without physical attraction the marriage would be difficult to hold together. Romantic notions of love conquering all were not part of Geneva's decision making process. They did think love was necessary. But so were many other things, such as normal sex and physical attraction.

Divorce in Reformation Europe

I just finished reading Robert Kingdon's book Adultery and Divorce in John Calvin's Geneva. In this book he examines four specific cases of divorce in Geneva and what those cases can teach us about how views on divorce changed during the Reformation. Prior to the Reformation divorce was impossible. There were various ways to get out of a marriage including annulment and legal separation. But there was no divorce.  Calvin and other reformers, including Beza and Vermigli, changed this during the 1500s. However, while divorce was permitted it was still extremely difficult to get one. The only reasons for divorce were adultery and desertion. Here are some thoughts from the concluding chapter of Kingdon's book.

"Divorce was now possible in Protestant Geneva, however, it remained difficult. A petitioner for a divorce always had to make a compelling case that adultery or desertion had occurred, a case that could withstand the scrutiny of a full trial.  It was never enough for a husband and wife simply to declare that they had become incompatible and no longer wished to live together...Furthermore, an attempt, sometimes quite strenuous was almost always made to persuade the couple to resolve their problems without divorce, to forgive each other, and in token of this fresh agreement to participate in a formal reconciliation ceremony."

Kingdon goes on to note that most divorces took a long time to be approved. In the four cases described in the book, one took two years, one petition for divorce had to be filed twice, nine years apart, and one man was separated from his wife for eight years before divorce was granted.  He also notes that in the entire period of Calvin's ministry in Geneva (1541-1564) only twenty six divorces for adultery were granted and far less for desertion. In other Protestant areas divorce, while allowed, was almost unheard of.  Basel had less than three per year. Neuchatel had less than one per year . Zurich was around 5 per year. Kingdon goes on to say that from 1500-1592 there was .57 divorces per 1,000 people per year in Basel. In 1910 the rate was 55.8 divorces per 1,000 people per year. The point here is that despite Protestants opening the door for divorce it was still almost impossible to get one. Kingdon cites one author who notes that widespread divorce rates did not take hold on continental Europe until the early 1800s.

All Protestants felt the innocent party in a divorce was free to remarry. Many, especially Beza who wrote a book on divorce after Calvin's death, felt that the guilty should remarry as well. It would keep them from sexual immorality.

Kingdon adds that the death penalty was occasionally used on notorious adulterers, which would of course be a de facto divorce. However, this form of punishment was not common in Protestant or Roman Catholic circles.

Parental Consent to Marriage in Geneva

In most cultures parental involvement in who someone married was a given. Children assumed that the approval, especially of the father, was good and in  many cases necessary for a marriage to move forward. Geneva was no different. Eight of the first ten articles in Geneva's 1546 Marriage Ordinance were devoted to parental consent. The prominence of parental consent issues in this document show the importance of the doctrine to John Calvin. Here is a summary of those eight articles.

1. Any son under twenty and daughter under eighteen years of age had to have the father's consent to marry. After that age they were free to marry whom they wished though the father's consent was still desirable.

In this article the age at which a child can marry without parental consent is given. However, there was "no minimum age children needed to be to enter into marriage in the first place." This was flexible. The child had to be able to bear or sire children and thus must be post-puberty. In theory, any time after puberty a child could be given consent to marry. In reality, the maturity or lack thereof of a child played a big role in when consent was given. I will look at this more closely in the next blog post.

2. If the father was dead, a ward or guardian could take the father's place. Relatives of the child were to be consulted about a child's marriage choice if the father was dead.

3, If two people under-age have entered into a secret marriage it can be dissolved at the parents' or guardians' request.

4. Secret promises to marry between under-age couples were not valid.

Note that the marriage "can be" dissolved in #3 at the parent's request. It does not appear that it had to be. 

The authors make this note. "All the leading Protestant reformers allowed parents to annul their children's secret engagements. The question that divided Protestants sharply was whether parents could annul their children's secret marriages, too."  By 1560 Calvin decided that secret marriages, which had been consummated, could not be annulled just because the couple was under-age.

The authors add

The medieval canonists used sacramental logic: even secret marriages could not be dissolved because they were sacramental. Calvin used prudential logic: Even secret marriages could not be dissolved because that catered to parental tyranny, left despoiled virgins vulnerable to spinsterhood, and consigned any children of the union to the bane of bastardy. 

5. A father cannot withhold the dowry if a daughter above age has married lawfully, but against the father's wishes.

6. A father cannot compel a child to marry against their will. If a young person refuses consent the father cannot punish them for this.

7. If a child rebels against their father's will and marries badly the father can refuse to provide for the child.

This is the balance to #5 and #6. Children had freedom in who they married, but if it could be proven that they married a wicked or immoral spouse then the father had the right to refuse financial support.

8. A previously married child is free to remarry without the father's consent though it is desirable.

Calvin felt that parental consent was essential in making the decision to marry. It gave the child guidance and direction in determining whom to marry. Here are few quotes from Calvin on the matter:

Since marriage forms a principle part of human life, it is right that, in contracting it, children should be subject to their parents, and should obey their counsel. This order is what nature prescribes and dictates.

It is not lawful for the children of a family to contract marriage except with the consent of the parents. And, certainly, natural equity dictates that, in a matter of such importance, children should depend upon the will of the parents.

However, Calvin was no fool and he knew the doctrine of depravity extended to parents as well as children. He often condemned men in the Bible, such as Caleb, for holding out their daughters as prizes of war without consulting them. Here are some quotes that show the balance between the consent of the child and the will of the parents:

Children should allow themselves to be governed by their parents, and that they, on the other hand, do not drag their children by force to what is against their inclination, and they have no other object in view, in the exercise of their authority, than the advantage of their children.

Although it is the office of parents to settle their daughters in life, they are not permitted to exercise tyrannical power or to assign them to whatever husbands they think fit without consulting them.  For while all contracts ought to be voluntary, freedom ought to prevail especially in marriage that no one may pledge his faith against his will. 

Here is a quote from Theodore Beza, John Calvin's successor:

Are children to agree necessarily with those in whose power they are? I reply that they are not forced since a free and fully voluntary consent is a first requirement for marriage. But still the respect owed to parents  and to those who take the place of parents demands that [a minor child] should not disagree with them, except for a very serious reason. But in turn, it is only fair that parents treat their children with moderation and not force them into this or that marriage against their will

Parental consent like individual consent was essential to a valid engagement in Geneva.  A few closing thoughts on Geneva's laws regarding parents involvement in the marriages of their children.

There is a wonderful balance, at least on paper, between the will of the parents and the will of the child. We tend towards extremes. Many evangelical parents have little say in who their children marry. They assume a child can make their decisions with little guidance. In reaction to this many family-centered types have made the will of the child of little consequence. If dad doesn't like the boy then the daughter cannot marry him even if he is godly. In Geneva, neither the child nor the parent got to dictate. Both were to work together towards a mutually agreed upon marriage. Parents should be involved in whom their children choose to marry, even if the child has left the home. But the will of the parents does not trump the will of the child.

In Geneva, the father had real authority, but not absolute authority. In family-centered/patriarchal churches it is often assumed that whatever dad thinks must go. A father makes decisions about his daughter's future and assumes there is no one above him to whom he is accountable. But in Geneva fathers would be chastised by the Consistory if they were exercising their power in a tyrannical fashion. Children could appeal to the Consistory if the father refused consent for selfish reasons. It was specifically said that if a child and parent could not come to an agreement then they should go to the magistrate. Beza said, "Severity of fathers in all aspects of their role should be shunned, and likewise fathers must be warned against abusing the power entrusted them by God."  Patriarchy, as understood by the reformers, meant that fathers were accountable to the elders, the broader community, and the magistrate. The fear some have of patriarchy could be alleviated if there was more authority over fathers and if fathers submitted willingly to that authority. On the flip side, some of those anti-patriarchy folks need to remember that fathers do have real authority over their children. 

The above paragraphs show how Geneva tried to functioned as a community, not a collection of individuals. The decision to marry was not left up to the man and woman only, as is often the case in our society. The parents, extended family, community, state, church, prospective spouses, and of course God speaking in the Scriptures all had a say in who married who.  Today if one person "loves" another person that is assumed to be all that is necessary for a marriage to be formed. But in Geneva that would have been impossible. Outside consent was as necessary as individual consent. The decision to marry was built on the consent of the community not just on the feelings of the individuals involved. 

Consent, Coercion, and Conditions in Geneva

 "In Calvin's Geneva, as much as today, marriage was a contract between a fit man and a fit woman of the age of consent.  It was, of course, much more than a contract: it was a spiritual, social, natural, and economic relationship that could involve many other parties besides the couple. But marriage was never less than a contract. It could not be created unless both the man and woman consented voluntarily to this union."

So begins Witte and Kingdon's fourth chapter on marriage in Geneva. In this chapter the authors explore how Geneva dealt with coerced marriages or false promises of marriage that were never fulfilled.

First, they offer this summary,

Like the medieval canonists, Calvin treated marriage as a "sacred contract" that depends in its essence on mutual consent. Calvin repeated this teaching many times. "While all contracts ought to be voluntary, freedom ought to prevail especially in marriage, so that no one may pledge his faith against his will." When a woman wishes to marry, she must not " be thrust into it reluctantly or compelled to marry against her will, but left to her own free choice." When a man "is going to marry and he takes a wife, let him take her of his own free will, knowing that where there is not a true and pure love, there is nothing but disorder, and one can expect no grace from God"...The doctrine of mutual consent was so commonplace and uncontroversial in his day that Calvin offered little sustained theological analysis.

As background to what follows, remember a public promise to marry someone said before witnesses was binding.You couldn't promise to marry and then back out tomorrow. As you can imagine many couples made public promises they later regretted. And because promises were held in such high regard unscrupulous suitors would try to coerce a girl to promise marriage when under normal circumstances should would have ignored his advances.

Because promises were taken so seriously coercion was a constant problem. Geneva worked hard to make sure both the man and women freely agreed to a marriage. When a person was "physically threatened or coerced into marriage, or they were seduced, tricked, blackmailed, or fraudulently induced into giving their consent, the Consistory annulled their engagement or their marriage and often punished the coercing party quite severely."

What were some of the situations that qualified as a coerced promise of marriage? Getting a girl drunk and then having her agree to marriage or both parties being drunk. Frivolous promises, such as promising marriage after just meeting someone, could also be considered coercive. Getting a girl who was not yet of age to promise marriage without her parents' consent.  In one case, a man asked a girl to marry him if he arranged to get her out of prison. She agreed, but later wanted to back out. The Consistory allowed her to back out because the man had coerced her. A similar situation arose with a girl fleeing persecution. A man promised to pay for her escape to Geneva if she married him. She wanted to back out after arriving in Geneva. The Consistory allowed her to because the promise could not be made freely when she was under duress. In one case, a mother had tricked her daughter into marrying. Calvin said that the marriage should be annulled and that all parties involved in the deceit, mother, witnesses, and the minister should be punished severely. Any contracts where the one of the parties, usually the woman, were "physically threatened or psychologically coerced into marriage could be annulled." (Would Calvin have annulled Jacob's marriage to Leah?)

Sometimes men were forced to keep their promises of marriage. As has been true throughout history, men often want women, but don't want marriage. A man would say to a woman, "Have sex with me and I will marry you." The woman obliges and the man then refuses to marry. The girl would often get pregnant in such situations and be left without support or future prospects. The Consistory would punish both parties for fornication and then force the man to keep his promise.

Finally, conditions were a big part of Medieval marriage contracts. A man would say something like, "I will marry you if your father gives us the house he promised you." Prior to the Reformation there were complex laws to address the conditions people used to arrange marriage contracts. Geneva simplified things. They divided conditions up into two types: ancillary and essential. Most conditions, like the example above, were ancillary and often involved the promise of a possession or money, such as a ring or dowry. Even if an ancillary promise wasn't fulfilled the couple still had to marry, which was in contrast to Medieval practice.  An example of an essential condition would be  "I will marry you if your divorce goes through." This condition struck at the essence of marriage. A failure to meet this condition would lead to an engagement or marriage being annulled. This might seem odd to us, but in Geneva the promise to marry was to be freely given without conditions except those essential to a proper marriage. Property, rings, dowries, living quarters, etc. were not considered of the essence of marriage. Thus to force a potential spouse to give something like this before you marry was a form of coercion. Geneva was fine with conditions being attached to the marriage contract by mutual consent. But if the condition was ancillary its fulfillment could not be made a criteria for marriage.

In conclusion:

The Consistory and Council thus annulled engagement or marriage contracts where they found no full or free consent on both sides...Where the parties gave their mutual consent to engagement but then later changed their minds, however, the Consistory held them to their promises...If it had been properly formed, the engagement contract could not be dissolved even by mutual consent. 

Just a couple of short thoughts from this history lesson.

It continues to astound me how seriously people took spoken vows and promises. Often our promises, even major ones, are broken for the slightest reason. That was unheard of in Geneva. A promise spoken was assumed to be a promise kept.

Second, marriage required full and free consent of both parties. Note Calvin's phrase in the earlier quote, "where there is not a true and pure love, there is nothing but disorder, and one can expect no grace from God."  We often view our fathers in the faith as dictators who cared nothing for the feelings of their children. "Daughter, I know you love John, but you will marry Steve because I said so." The reality was far removed from this. The caricature of hard fathers forcing daughters to marry against their will for money or position and getting away with it is unfounded, at least in Geneva.  The feelings and desires of the child could not be overthrown by the father. Love for a potential spouse, while not the only or primary consideration, was not ignored.

Third, most of the laws and rulings of the Consistory were designed to protect young women. The more history I read the more sure I am that women in America are some of the least protected either by law or societal norms of all women throughout the history of Western civilization.

Courtship in Geneva

This is the continuation of a series based on John Witte Jr and Robert Kingdon's book Sex, Marriage and Family in John Calvin's Geneva: Volume 1, Courtship, Engagement, and Marriage. At the end of the series I will draw some conclusions from the book. For now I am surveying each chapter with a few comments thrown in. If you hit the John Calvin label to the right you can find other posts from the book. 

Marriage was done differently 500 years ago than it is today. Today many, if not most marriages are arranged by the two parties with little consideration of what their parents or other adults might think of the proposed spouse. Often the path that leads to marriage is taken by the two parties alone. There is very little parental instruction to the young people on how to proceed. From the youngest years dating dominates our interaction with the opposite sex and usually our closest advisers are peers. This usually means that the choice of a marriage partner is driven by a fluttering heart or an excited body instead of reason, discretion, and prudence.

But it has not always been so.  In John Calvin's time romantic interaction with the opposite sex was supposed to be reserved for when a person could physically and financially marry. When a couple began to seriously consider marriage they were usually overseen by their parents or guardians. In the third chapter of Witte and Kingdon's book they explore this process of courtship in Geneva.

In Geneva, courtship did not take an exact shape. Calvin gave a few courtship rules such as no sexy dressing, unsupervised trips, overnight stays, dancing, "ribald letters," and premarital sex. But as to the exact way a courtship worked out there were no strict rules. The parents were involved. There had to be free consent of both parties. There parties were to be honest about their financial state. But the details of courtship were a matter of wisdom. "While the Bible said a great deal about the sins of fornication, it said little about the ethics of courtship." Since Scripture is largely silent on the specifics of courtship, so was Calvin. This is an important point for modern courtship advocates. I believe courtship is the model most rooted in Scriptural principles. There are general guidelines, which should govern courtship. However, the specifics should be left up to the parents, couple, and church. Those specifics will flex from family to family, community to community, and age to age. To say, "This is how courtship must be done" is to go further than Scripture.

While how a couple courted was left vague, who they courted was not. There were two issues. First, who could they legally and biblically marry. There were "conditions, experiences, or relationships past or present [that] disqualified [certain parties] from courtship and marriage." It was forbidden for certain people to marry certain other people and some cases people could not get married at all. This idea is explored at length in later chapters of the book.

Second, a potential spouse's moral, physical, and socio-economic status were to be evaluated.  Christians were expected to think through these factors before pursuing marriage. A potential spouse's moral character was most important when determining whether or not to marry. A person with moral failings, such as laziness, a bad reputation, or sexual immorality should not be pursued. Someone of a different class should not be pursued either. An educated man should not pursue an uneducated woman. A rich woman should not consent to marry a poor man. The elders at Geneva would not have necessarily forbidden such a marriage, but they would have strongly counselled against it. They felt marrying in the same class would give the couple the greatest chance of success. Reformers were especially wary of young men marrying rich widows. All of this backs up what Steven Ozment says about the Reformation approach to marriage.

While moral and class issues played a large role in courtship, Calvin did not ignore the physical side of it either.

Physical beauty was thus properly part of the natural calculus of courtship and marriage, Calvin believed. It was not 'wrong for women to look at men." Nor was it ' wrong for men to regard beauty in their choice of wives'...It was thus essential to Calvin that couples spend some time together before considering marriage...If there was no natural and mutual attraction, there was no use for a couple to go forward toward marriage. Accordingly, Calvin opposed the late medieval tradition of arranged or child marriages, sight unseen.

The authors conclude the chapter with this,

A strong pro-marriage ethic and culture was the new norm of Reformation Geneva...One key to a strong marriage, Calvin insisted, was picking the right mate-a person of ample piety, modesty, and virtue especially, of comparable social, economic, and educational status as well. A mate's physical beauty could play a part...but spiritual beauty was the salient issue.

There is one funny anecdote in the chapter. Calvin was a bachelor for quite some time. In fact, he had all but given up getting married when someone suggested an Anabaptist widow named Idellette, whom he eventually married. Calvin's good friend Farel wrote to him saying that she was an excellent wife, filled with all godly virtue and to his surprise she was pretty as well. Was Farel surprised that such a godly woman could be so pretty? Or was he surprised that a man like Calvin could land such a pretty woman? I am betting on the latter, but unfortunately we do not know.

An Ethic of Perpetual Reconciliation

"A marriage, once properly contracted, consecrated, and celebrated was presumed permanent. The married couple was expected to maintain a common home. Both parties could be called to account for privately separating-particularly if there was suspicion of adultery, harlotry, concubinage, or sodomy. Couples who 'wrangled and disputed with each other' were to be admonished by the Consistory to 'live in peace and unity'-with severe cases of discord reported to the congregation for popular reproof or to the Council for criminal punishment. Husbands were forbidden to 'ill treat,' 'beat,' or 'torment' their wives, and were subject to severe criminal if they persisted. These sanctions became increasingly severe in later years as the Consistory and Council sought to clamp down on domestic abuse. The [Marriage] Ordinance made no provision, even in extreme cases, for the traditional halfway remedy of separation (without divorce). An ethic of perpetual reconciliation of husband and wife coursed through the Ordinance, with ministers, magistrates, and members of the broader community all called to foster this end." Sex, Marriage and Family in John Calvin's Geneva

By the way, what is not meant here is that the rulers would allow a wife to stay in a physically dangerous situation. What he means by "separation" is the freedom to live apart from one another without ever getting a divorce. This was common in the Middle Ages.  Leaders would remove a woman from a dangerous situation, but this was not a permanent solution, unless it led to divorce.

Engagement, Marriage, and Consent in Calvin's Geneva

Coerced marriages were a big problem in John Calvin's Geneva. The laws in Geneva were designed to make sure both parties consented freely to the marriage. Here were the rules Geneva set down to make sure engagements were not coerced.

First, all engagements were to be initiated by a "sober proposal" from the man in front of at least two witnesses of "good reputation." "Engagements made in secret, qualified with onerous conditions, or procured by coercion were automatically annulled." "Engagements procured through trickery, 'surprise,' or made frivolously, as when merely touching glasses when drinking together, could be annulled on petition by either party."  They took this so seriously that if a man promised to rescue a woman from a bad situation if she married him, such as an abusive father or being in Roman Catholic city,  she could have that promise annulled because it was coerced.

Second, the consent of the parents or guardians was needed or desired. Men under twenty and women under eighteen had to have their parents' consent. Adult children could proceed without the parents' consent, but, "it would be more fitting for them to let themselves always be governed by the advice of their fathers."

Third, though the parents' consent was important it was not a substitute for the consent of the children. "Parents could not, on the pain of imprisonment, coerce their children into unwanted engagements or marriages, or withhold consent or payment of dowry until the child chose a favorite partner...Children confronting a negligent or excessively strict father, could have him compelled to give a dowry in support of their marriage.

Fourth, "the consent of the broader state and church community also played a part." Here is how that worked. When a couple got engaged they went to the magistrate and got a "banns" which was a public announcement of the couple's intention to marry. Their pastor would then announce this impending marriage from the pulpit for three consecutive Sundays.

Such widespread notice was an open invitation for fellow parishioners and citizens alike to approve the match or voice their objections.  Any objections to the engagement could be raised at this point. But all such objections had to be voiced privately to the Consistory, and only by citizens or by persons of good reputation...those who objected in an untimely or improper manner could be sued for defamation by the couple or their parents. 

What can we learn from this particular arrangement in Calvin's Geneva? Is this just a relic of an older age that cannot speak to the 21st century? We cannot imitate Calvin's Geneva. But we can learn from it.

First, the interaction between the different parties involved is commendable. The state and the church expected the individuals, their families, their friends, their fellow citizens, and their fellow church members to all have a hand in approving or disapproving the marriage. This is in sharp contrast to today's culture where most engagements are made with little outside consultation. Marriages are not private affairs. They impact all the parties involved to greater and lesser degrees. Therefore all parties should have some say. These laws support the notion put forward by Steven Ozment that men were primarily seen in their social relationships during the Middle Ages and Reformation.

Second, though these groups were involved none of them had final say. All parties were subject to certain rules that guided whether or not the marriage could take place.  There was a recognition of the need for checks and balances. No person or group should function as a tyrant over another.

Third, only those of "good reputation" could have a say. Notice that when a couple got engaged or when a complaint was brought before the Consistory only those of good reputation could be witnesses. A man who was known liar, cheat, adulterer, or traitor could not have a voice in the couple's choice. This was one way the couple was protected from vengeful attacks upon their character. (The other way the couple was protected was that all accusations were to be brought privately and if they were found to be false those bearing false witness could be imprisoned or pay a fine.) This law also provided incentive for men to keep their reputations clean if they wanted to have any say in who their friends or family members married.

Finally, all of this consent may seem like a lot of trouble. But that is only because our culture easily breaks promises. In Geneva, "the strong presumption was that engagement contracts, once properly made, could not be broken." Once a man promised to marry a lady and she promised to marry him it was set. Therefore everyone involved was to make every effort to be honest and to bring out into the open any potential problems. In our culture not only are engagements broken with regularity but marriage vows are as well. When promises are so easily broken it is not surprising that they are not made "reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God." (Book of Common Prayer)

Pulling the Lion's Skin From the Asses

I am finally getting back to Kingdon and Witte's book Courtship, Engagement and Marriage in Calvin's Geneva. I took a break to look into some other matters.

This post looked at the basic foundations for marriage law in the church at the time of the Reformation. Some of the ideas taught were retained by the reformers, some were modified, and some were rejected all together. The first chapter focuses on the general changes that the Reformation in Geneva brought about to the law. The core change the reformers made was to reject marriage as a sacrament. Here is a short summary of Calvin's views on marriage.

For Calvin

Marriage is a "good and holy ordinance of God just like farming, building, cobbling, and barbering." Marriage serves to procreate children, to remedy continence, and to promote "love between husband and wife." Its morals and mores are subject to the laws of God that are written on the conscience, rewritten in the pages of Scripture, and distilled in the Ten Commandments. Marriage, however, is not a sacrament of the heavenly kingdom. Though it symbolizes the bond between Christ and his Church, Yahweh and his chosen people, marriage confirms no divine promise and confers no sanctifying grace, as do true sacraments. Though it is a righteous mode of Christian living in the earthly kingdom, it has no bearing on one's salvation or eternal standing. 

For the church to subordinate marriage to celibacy is to commit spiritual "arrogance" of supplanting God's ordinance with human tradition.

For the church to impose new laws on its own members is to obstruct the simple law and liberty of the Gospel. 

One would think that rejecting marriage as a sacrament would lead to a rejection of marriage in general. In other words, it is odd that by saying marriage is a normal part of human and Christian life marriage was elevated. But that is exactly what happened.  The Middle Age theology of marriage had made marriage into something it wasn't. Whenever man does this he ultimately destroys the thing. In this case marriage was not elevated by making it a sacrament. It was denigrated. By returning to the Scriptures the reformers restored marriage to its proper place and it became glorious again.

Here are a couple of other lines from Calvin's attack on marriage as a sacrament from Institutes. 

But having graced marriage with the title of sacrament, to call it afterward uncleanness and pollution and carnal filth-what giddy levity is this? How absurd it is to bar priests from this sacrament! If they say they do not debar them from the sacrament, but from the lust of copulation, they will not give me the slip. For they teach that copulation itself is part of the sacrament...There is also another absurdity in their grand offices.  They affirm that in the sacrament the grace of the Holy Spirit is conferred; they teach copulation to be a sacrament; and they deny that the Holy Spirit is ever present in copulation. Not to have mocked the church simply in one thing, what a long train of errors, lies, frauds and misdeeds have they attached to this one  error...At length, we must extricate ourselves from their mire, in which our discourse has already stuck longer than I should have liked. Still, I believe that I have accomplished something in that I have partly pulled the lion's skin from these asses. [1536 version of Calvin's Institutes, p. 236-40]

The attack on marriage as a sacrament was the key battle line in the war over marriage with the Roman Catholics. When this domino fell the reformers felt that a lot of unbiblical and unwise traditions would fall with it.