Absurd Marriages of the Medieval Era

Medieval marriages, as explained by both in the BBC documentary and Marie de France’s lais, was far from what we are accustomed to today. In the BBC documentary, they explain the core details about medieval marriages. Women and Men, if you could call them men and women and not boys and girls, were married as young as the ages twelve for girls and seventeen for boys. Before they even met, the parents would converse and decide whether the marriage would be good for both families. Most families made sure property and money were in line. They also made sure the political side of it, meaning they made sure that the marriage would be good for their social upbringing was in tact. Only then would the two meet. Love was not a priority but more like a privilege in the medieval era. You were considered lucky if you found love in your arrangement.

A reason why marriage was important to the men and women of this age was because sex was considered eternal damnation if you were not married. It was important to the men and women to conceive at an early age because they were more fertile and it gave them more time to keep trying for kids since miscarriages were not rare at all.

One thing that is different than marriages today is that back then you could get married anywhere such as a pub or even a hedgerow simply by exchanging words of consent. The marital band was also placed on the right hand back then rather than the left. The priest, following the celebration of the marriage, would then go back to with them to the bedroom to bless the bed. This blessing was necessary because the bed was considered deeply troubled back then and full of sin without marriage or blessings. The lays of Marie de France are brimming with depictions of couples engaged in illicit love affairs. In her lais, the man and woman did not pick each other as their spouses but were also arranged. These relationships however are an example of how some did not last in the medieval era.