marriage

marriage. The institution of marriage followed several traditions in medieval Ireland which reflected the composite nature of the population: a native tradition evident from early Christian times which was strong enough to resist radical change in the face of the 12th‐century church reform, and an Anglo‐Irish tradition reflecting the influence of English common law and canon law introduced by the coming of Anglo‐Norman conquest and settlement. In Gaelic‐Irish law (brehon law) ten unions were recognized in early Christian times, all of which were formal contracts, varying in the status of the persons concerned and in the contribution both parties brought to the coupling. The strongest marital ties were with the first wife (cétmuinter), but because of the recognition of secondary wives, who were in many cases concubines, polygyny was a feature of pre‐Norman Ireland. Polygynous tendencies decreased, probably under church pressure, but this did not create the monogamous lifelong marital pattern advocated by the church.

In Gaelic‐Irish society consecutive marriages became a prominent feature, facilitated by the ready availability of divorce. Women were subordinate to the leading male member of their family (a father, an uncle, a brother), which greatly diminished any personal choice in deciding a match. This was particularly the case among the nobility where marriage almost invariably accompanied a political settlement (alliance, the pacification of an enemy, submission). A woman in Gaelic‐Irish society however, could achieve more influence through the acquisition of wealth. In a divorce settlement the woman withdrew what she brought into the marriage and received a share of the profits generated while within the union. Economic factors were also taken into consideration when forming a match. In both traditions the bride brought to her husband goods in the form of land or moveable wealth. In Gaelic‐Irish custom the bride received a gift in return. Marriage was also contracted in exchange for goods, property, or services.

Depending on her social status the bride in Irish customary law had certain rights in relation to contract making and responsibilities within the domestic realm. As a result of ties to her family which remained throughout the course of the, union she retained a certain degree of independence. In Anglo‐Irish tradition the family of the bride relinquished all responsibility for the bride to the husband, with the property of the bride being transferred to her husband's estate. When the sole child left to inherit was a daughter, Gaelic‐Irish custom encouraged the heiress to marry within her kin group in order to prevent the alienation of family land, as was advised in the Old Testament. This custom stood in direct opposition to the church's teachings on unions within specific degrees of consanguinity and affinity. Likewise intermarrying within the forbidden degrees among the Anglo‐Irish was common, in particular amongst the nobility, where a limited number of families utilized intermarrying to consolidate power and wealth.

In accordance with canon law and common law the consent of both parties to a union was the sole mandatory requirement which constituted a legally binding marriage—preferably declared in the presence of witnesses and followed by a church ceremony. This eliminated the many difficulties which arose with the prevalence of clandestine marriages. Cross‐cultural marriages occurred, which were prohibited in legislation on the grounds of protecting the Anglo‐Irish colony from degenerating through contact of this manner with the Gaelic‐Irish (see kilkenny, statute of). As a result of the growing influence the church brought to bear on social issues, the spread of common law which required legitimate children to inherit, and the increasing contact between the two traditions, the gap between Gaelic and Anglo‐Irish marital practices in late medieval Ireland was slowly diminishing.

Marriage in early modern Ireland, although theoretically subject to the restrictions imposed by canon law, and from the 1530s to renewed secular legislation, was still regarded by many as a private contract between individuals, and clandestine marriages remained common. The Council of Trent's Tametsi decree (1563), invalidating marriages not celebrated by the couple's bishop or parish priest, or a clergyman authorized by them, was not implemented in early modern Ireland because it complicated marriages between Catholics and Protestants, which were normally celebrated without the involvement of Catholic clergy.

The canon law on consanguinity, which excluded close relatives as potential marriage partners, had significant social implications in what were still small‐scale societies in which marriage was often a means of strengthening existing ties of kinship. Evidence from 15th‐century papal letters shows steady demand for dispensations from both Gaelic and Anglo‐Irish applicants. Many requests were from cohabiting couples with children, indicating that dispensations were sought to regularize pre‐existing marriages. Second and third marriages were common in a society where life expectancy at birth was 28 for males and 34 for females. Second or subsequent marriages while a partner was still alive were not unusual. While the church imposed impediments on marriage if one party had a living spouse, evidence of aristocratic marriages among the Gaelic community in 16th‐century Ireland suggests an ongoing tension between canon law and social and political realities. Marriage practices which did not find sanction in canon law continued to be socially and politically acceptable in Gaelic Ireland down to the end of the 16th century. Women classified as concubines under canon law were accorded the same status as wives within Gaelic society, and their children were not deprived of rights of inheritance. On the other hand, the abandonment of wives without recourse to divorce or annulment left women vulnerable, and such cases were sometimes appealed to the ecclesiastical courts.

The extension of English common law throughout Ireland in the early modern period gradually influenced concepts of marriage and legitimacy. In particular, there was a growing concern among those who owned property, and who wished to ensure valid title to land under the common law system of inheritance, that marriages could be shown to have been legally contracted.

Choice of marriage partner was influenced by a range of social and political considerations. Among the elite, marriage contracts were most likely to be negotiated with political allies. The 1537 legislation, which included a restatement of the medieval prohibition on intermarriage between individuals of Anglo‐Irish and Gaelic origin, in an attempt to protect the Pale, had scant impact. The level of intermarriage between Gaelic Irish and Old English families varied from one region to another, and was determined more by the availability of partners of appropriate social status than by concerns over ethnicity. By the 17th century the level of intermarriage was such that traditional ethnic distinctions had become irrelevant. In a period of religious and cultural change, there is plentiful evidence, too, of a divergence of religious practices between the partners to a marriage.

Marriage across social groups was rare, and little evidence survives about the marriages of the poorer classes. In regions where land was held on annual tenures reallocated in May, this was also the matchmaking season when marriages of young couples of all social levels might be arranged. Marriage was an economic as well as a social contract. The amount of money, land, or other property to be brought to the marriage was agreed in advance.

Older historical accounts, commencing with Connell's classic study of 1950, suggested that the 18th and 19th centuries saw dramati shifts in attitudes and behaviour. From the mid‐18th century, it was argued, age at marriage fell dramatically as the growth of labour‐intensive tillage farming, subdivision of holdings, and dependence on the potato liberated young couples from economic and family restraints. After the disaster of the Great Famine, on the other hand, an obsessive concern with security, and with the preservation and extension of the family holding, led to a new pattern of late and often arranged marriages. Modern research has played down these suggested discontinuities. Such evidence as is available indicates that in the mid‐17th century the average age at first marriage was already relatively low (22–3 for women, 27–8 for men). The average age in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was probably not very different: contemporary accounts of widespread teenage marriages reflect growing concern at the sharp rise in population and the increase in poverty that had accompanied it, rather than reliable observation. It is also clear that long before the Famine arranged marriages, negotiated between the families of the prospective partners on the basis of the assets each would bring with them, were common among graziers and farmers.

By the 1830s there are signs that marriages were becoming fewer and later, as falling agricultural prices and pressure of numbers reduced economic opportunity: in this as in other respects the Famine accelerated rather than initiated change. The increasing prominence of the arranged marriage or ‘match’ in post‐Famine Ireland, similarly, may be evidence less of a change in behaviour than of the growing dominance in a smaller population of the farming class, among whom matchmaking was already well established. That said, the pattern of marriage that now took shape was on the margins of European experience. By the First World War the average age of marriage had risen to 33 for men and 28 for women, while more than a quarter of both men and women over 45 were still, and probably permanently, unmarried.

It is impossible to generalize about the nature of the marital relationships that resulted from this demographic pattern. From the late 18th century the new idea of the ‘companionate’ marriage, of mutual inclination and constant negotiation, challenged the older idea of the authoritarian husband and the submissive wife. Folklore, song, and story give us to understand that pleasurable wooing followed by lifelong support and co‐operation was the popular ideal; mercenary ‘matches’ were deplored. In practice, the everyday companionship of some husbands and wives, and the tyranny of one spouse (male or female) over another, both existed at all social levels.

For all but the very wealthy, the marital state involved hard work: making a living, and maintaining life from day to day, to say nothing of reproduction and childcare. Even with separate spheres of work for husband and wife, burdens could be eased if the couple ‘agreed’. The despised ‘matches’ often worked out if the two people got on well together. Emotional power reinforced economic power and vice versa; the younger wife ruled by a much older husband often went on to enjoy a vigorous and powerful widowhood administering her property and the lives of her offspring. In the 1940s and 1950s government commissions, churches, and other organizations concerned at population decline identified these powerful widows as serious obstacles to marriage among farmers and property owners.

By this time, however, patterns of marriage were already beginning to change. The idea that the marital home should be inhabited solely by the couple and their children, without permanently resident parents or adult siblings, had begun to permeate all social classes. The popularity of female emigration, the rise in opportunities for (single) women's white‐collar work, and external cultural influences combined to undermine the practice of matchmaking. Education, skills, and the woman's own savings took the place of the dowry that would previously have been demanded. From the late 1950s the average age of marriage began to fall. There was less generational discontinuity in the marriage practices of the propertyless and wage earners. But for them too the introduction in both jurisdictions of supports like family allowances, better housing, and health and educational benefits played their part in encouraging earlier marriage.

Bibliography

Connell, K. H. , The Population of Ireland 1750–1845 (1950)
Cosgrove, Art (ed.), Marriage in Ireland (1985)
Jackson, Donald , Intermarriage in Ireland, 1550–1650, (1970)
O'Dowd, M., and Wichert, S. (eds.), Chattel, Servant or Citizen: Women's Status in Church, State and Society (1995)
Simms, Katharine , ‘The Legal Position of Irish Women in the Later Middle Ages’, Irish Jurist, 10 (1975)

BNC,/BC,/SC,/ and Bronagh Ní Chonaill