as small as a world and as large as alone, I have a question. Maybe you know more than me, do...

6:20pm December 10, 2013

dayen-is-a-bish-deactivated2013 asked: I have a question. Maybe you know more than me, do you know since when this "rethinking" of the society started that girls shouldnt be married off in arranged marriages but rather find their "love of their life" and marry this person? I only know that in the book Gone with the Wind it was once mentioned, and this was set in 1860s.If you find an answer, i would love to know the source (:

thats-not-victorian:

eternaleve:

thats-not-victorian:

It is true that marrying for love is a very new concept, since for the longest time marriage was really little more than a business transaction (which is why I find the “traditional marriage” argument against same-sex marriage so frustrating—but this isn’t the place for that).

It was during the Victorian era that the idea of marrying for love began to take hold (#8), but they could thank the Enlightenment for that, it seems. It’s probably good that there was an alternative incentive for marriage, since women lost many of their rights once they got a husband.

I know that was super simplified, but the links have a bit more info.

To provide a historian’s perspective (which is, again, massively over simplified), marrying for love is not and will never be a ‘new’ concept. People have always married for love, and marriage was never considered ‘little more’ than a business transaction.

This comes with a LOT of ‘buts’. It’s a butts party.

BUT - marriage based on love came to be seen as inherently dangerous in the western world as Catholic Christianity became the main religion of Europe. Passionate love was seen as a poor basis for a marriage, as it unstable; you’re electing to marry someone for life, it is not something to be entered into lightly. It should not be based on whether you had a great time with them behind the local tavern.

BUT - there was always a significant percentage of people who lived together and never got married. In respects to English history, until he marriage acts of the eighteenth century, marriage was hazy, from a legal perspective. Some people just never bothered, and lived together as common husband and wife. This was not frowned upon until the marriage acts of the 1700s.

BUT - seeing as marriage is something that lasts for life, young people were asked to think sensibly about it. That’s why most men didn’t get married until they were twenty six, women until 22-24. They were working and saving for their married lives. Hence, why you don’t marry the first guy you fall for. You have to think about your future economic life.

BUT - in society, the passing of land and money does take priority over the idea of love. This does not mean that all well-born young girls were forced into horrible loveless marriages. Arranged marriage had to be made on the basis of mutual consent - it was both secular and canon law (of course, there are exceptions). A man and woman in an arrange marriage had to approve of each other; it’s written into the legal contracts surrounding a majority of arranged marriages. If they didn’t, families would arrange for other children to make the same marriage instead. Love was expected to develop in time; in Tudor texts on marriage and love (I am an early modernist), it is advised that men and women find a partner who satisfies their need for friendship, companionship, and sexual fulfilment. Men and women are companions for each other, and should have a mutual affection that satisfies heart and soul.

Good, solid dependable love was the quality most triumphed by society and by advice literature; the passionate love that sees you marry in haste, repent in leisure was to be avoided by sensible boys and girls. Love itself is not a good enough basis, if it cannot sustain you through the lean times.

The idea that marriages prior to the nineteenth century were loveless and cruel is a very old perspective common to works prior to the seventies and eighties. Revisionist and post-modern works have mostly put to death the idea that marrying for love is a new concept.

I’m sorry if it comes off a bit annoyed, but there’s few things more annoying than outdated historical theories. They’re like a tiny stone that digs into your little toe when you can’t take your shoes off. And, it goes without saying, that this is an oversimplification of Catholic ideas in Europe post 1000 and up to about 1800.

Well, all righty, there you have it.