Marriage in the Renaissance
Marriage in the Renaissance was not what marriage is today; generally, it was not based on romantic love but on social status and political strategy. The center of early modern European society was marriage and the political and social status that came along with it. Marriage in this time also transformed children into adults, justified sexuality in the eyes of the church and the state, and it acted to reproduce the ruling classes (Horodowich, 2002). When parents promised their children in marriage, most thought only of money and short term strategic gain (James, 2008). Marriages arranged for social, economic or political gain typically only occurred among the aristocratic class because they actually had finances and property to begin with. In case property was absent, such as with the rural poor, there was no control or family strategy. Since parental control was weak among the rural poor, children would leave home early to seek out apprenticeships or to work as servants for others (Dean & Lowe, 1998). This paper will primarily focus on the marriages of Italy during the Renaissance as this is where most of the research to be found was centered. It should be noted that while arranged marriages occurred throughout Europe’s aristocracy, there were many potential differences that could be found, especially among women’s rights.
The French, Spanish and Portuguese allowed women to inherit estates much more often than the Italians; they would succeed not only to dukedoms but even to principalities exactly like men do (Sperling, 2007). The main focus of this paper is to try to prove that arranged marriages during the Renaissance were purely strategic in attempting to gain social status, boost financial standing, and increase political power. In the words of Bullard, (1979), “Matrimony had too many lasting effects to be left to lovers or to romance.”
Marriages in the Renaissance had many implications for all parties involved, both the individuals marrying and their families. By the later middle ages and sixteenth century, marriages were controlled by the interest of the family and there were three main objectives (Dean & Lowe, 1998):
- Continuity of the male line.
- Keeping intact inherited property.
- Acquisition of more property or useful political alliances through marriage.
Most often marriages were arranged to attain strategic alliances between families which would elevate power and wealth (Stern, 2009). While during the Renaissance, social status, and to a lesser degree political status and economic position were substantially determined by birth, at least marriage actually offered some choice. It was probably the most important means of improving social status in a society that otherwise had limited access to the ranks of the upper class (Bullard, 1979). There were, of course, those of the stately society that were becoming more aware that paying greater attention to the personal and private implications of married life was necessary if civic benefits of marriage were to be ascertained. This, however, did not supersede the expectation that individuals would tolerate an inharmonious spouse for the sake of family honor or significant political alliances (James, 2008). A betrothal was therefore never just an arrangement between a man and a women, it was a union of two families…this is because marriage provided a vehicle to immortalize a family (Bullard, 1979).
Marriages in the Renaissance generally served to strengthen and solidify alliances between families, and intermarriage was one way to deepen the economic, social and political interests of the patriciate (Bullard, 1979). As is generally known, the parents, usually the father, would decide who their children would marry as this was an important decision for the standing of the entire family. The fathers had dual and often contradictory roles: the parents’ interest in daughters was vastly different from their interest in their sons (Dean & Lowe, 1998). Fathers would attempt to get their daughters married off into a family of wealth and prestige in order to acquire more land and higher social status. At the same time they had to provide a dowry with their daughters…and the bigger the dowry, the more attractive the daughter appeared to men. The elite in Italy tended not to marry their sons to the daughters of social inferiors (Dean & Lowe, 1998).
Social status and political power during the Renaissance were inseparably linked, therefore marriage had political consequences; sometimes those in authority would intervene to actually prevent a marriage that would unite two families that may threaten the stability of the government ( Bullard, 1979). Marriages were typically arranged between families using marriage brokers who negotiated the best possible social and financial terms for the contract (Stern, 2009). A marriage negotiation took place in several steps:
The negotiation would be initiated by a sensale (marriage broker) who may come to the family with a profitable match.
Negotiations for the marriage contract continue through the efforts of one or multiple intermediaries.
The negotiations culminate in a first meeting between the parents of the future married couple and three of four of their closest relations.
Together the parents seal the alliance and the conditions of the agreement are documented in writing. At this point, many times the agreement is kept confidential for some time, either because the promised couple is still very young; they need to prepare the dowry agreement, etc.
Now symbolic gestures might sanction the agreement, such as the abboccamento (a ceremony) where much importance is given to a kiss on the mouth between negotiators.
After the agreement the groom to be goes to the house of his promised and he will usually bring a present, jewels or rings usually, and is treated to a good dinner by the family (Klapisch-Zuber, 1985).
Sometimes after the Impalamento (negotiation), a sponsalia (sponsorship) would take place. This was a meeting between only the male members of the families who reviewed the contracts and asked for assurances that the terms of the agreement are realistic and equitable to both families. Again, the woman involved in the marriage is not present, it is generally understood that she will accept the terms of the arrangement (Klapisch-Zuber, 1985). The entire proceeding certainly resembles a business transaction more than a marriage!
In Italy, once married there was a certain separation of goods. It was required that the bride be outfitted with a dowry, and once this dowry was accepted by the groom the marriage contract was sealed (Sperling, 2007). The dowry was quite interesting in that it seemed a daughter’s parents were actually paying for someone to marry her, like paying to sell your merchandise; it did not make much sense. “Dowries and wives changed hands in only one direction” (Klapisch-Zuber, 1985, p.12). There was no benefit to the woman in this arrangement either. The idea of dowries did display the social ideology of the time of the Renaissance in that it validated and proclaimed before all the social elite of the marrying couple and their families (Klapisch-Zuber, 1985). A daughter’s dowry would be assessed according to the match she was expected to make, since her dowry would be returned to her in the event of her husband’s death, it needed to be guaranteed; so the dowry represented not only the father’s liquidity but also the future husband’s credit-worthiness (Sperling, 2007).
In principle, at least, a woman’s dowered goods that are brought into her marriage were supposed to be attached to her for life – they provided the double function of providing for the expenses of the household and in the event of her husband’s death would provide for the surviving wife. Since she could not inherit her father’s estate (a father’s estate always went to the brothers in Italy), a woman had to look to her dowry for survival (Klapisch-Zuber, 1985). The dowry exchange as it was practiced in Italy during the Renaissance was supposed to compensate for the daughter’s loss of inheritance rights, to deny widows shares in their husband’s patrimonies (inheritance), and to obstruct and limit married women’s legal means (Sperling, 2007).
Women had few rights and truly were treated as objects during the Renaissance. Dean and Lowe, (1998), said, “It is men who give and take in marriage; women are conduits of matrimonial ties, no partners (19).” Women had to endure such treatment while men enjoyed all the rights in a marriage, they made decisions regarding financial issues, household decisions etcetera, and estates would pass from one generation to another (Klapisch-Zuber, 1985). For women, marriage may have been something that was socially necessary, but it did not necessarily bring any advantages to them. Dean & Lowe, (1998) states it is difficult to find any written opinions from women on this matter as married women of Renaissance Italy of any social class tended to leave few individual traces that would relate only to them rather than to their husbands or their families. One undeniable aspect of marriage is that they all come to an end through one means or another, divorce, death, etc., so contingency plans needed to be built in from the start. If the husband should die before his wife, this could be quite a dilemma for the woman as at that time women were supposedly unable to function in society effectively without men (Dean & Lowe, 1998).
Husbands who were well off or wealthy would try to deter their wives from taking off with their dowries in the event of their death; they would convince them to stay with their heirs in their houses. Most women did stay, as there are very few records of rich and elderly widows living independently. If a widow did not like her husband’s heirs or family and decided that she wanted to leave with her dowry, it was supposedly her right as she did have claim to the dowry. Unfortunately her in-laws did not always see it this way as records of law suits of the time proved, but luckily, for all the trouble they had to go through, laws were on the side of the widow (Klapisch-Zuber, 1985). Therefore, although their lives did not necessarily improve with marriage, there was a definite opportunity for lives to take a turn for the better upon the death of their husband due to the lifting of legal and social restrictions they otherwise had (Dean & Lowe, 1998).
As written above, marriages were generally arranged by parents in search of improved social status, enhanced economic status, and increased political power. While I’m certain parents did not want their children in an abusive or terrible marriage, I do believe this worry may have taken a back seat when looking for a partner for their children. In all fairness, there is evidence against parental control as well; individuals could persist in their decisions against the pressure of parents and friends. Girls could say no to proposals of marriage, but it was not necessarily common to go against parents (Dean & Lowe, 1998). While evidence indicates that there were some who decided whom they would marry, they were very few. In fact, court documents found regarding disputed marriages in Italy show some parents betrothing their daughters against their will, imposing their own wills by force and sometimes using beatings for persuasion in some circumstances.
There are several reasons to believe that marriages in the Italian Renaissance were begun in order to improve a family’s lot in life. To examine this society from the very beginning, parents would promise their children off to others when they were just toddlers! This alone shows that parents were not highly concerned about compatibility or harmony in the marriage, they were more occupied with the family and their station in society, acquisition of land, financial gain, notoriety, and others.
Another issue is how the procedures leading to marriage actually took place. There was more ceremony around the negotiation and the writing of the contract than anything else, and the marrying families were more concerned with getting the things they were promised in the contract than in the happiness of the new couple. The business-like atmosphere that comes with negotiating a marriage in the Renaissance presents the whole event as truly nothing more than a business deal.
Then, the issue of dowry also arose in marriage. More than finding a suitable husband for their daughters, parents would be more anxious to provide a suitable dowry for their daughter in order to be able to match her with wealthy elite, which would then elevate their own social status. For this reason parents actually did prefer to have sons over daughters, and actually did not spend much time with daughters and did not become as emotionally connected to them as they did with their sons. This was because with a daughter, parents tended to lose property while with sons they would gain it (Klapisch-Zuber, 1985).
Even in the end, if a woman outlived her husband and had the opportunity to consider herself “free” of the social and legal restrictions that had been set on her, a widow would still be persuaded not to leave with her dowry, but to stay with her in-laws or her late husband’s heirs in order to keep the dowry in the family, this way it would not have to be paid back. Again, the concern was not with the unfortunate widow who had lost her husband, it is with keeping the property in the household and in the family, to avoid paying it back. This is just another instance of the importance placed on money, property and social status over members of the family.
It’s difficult to imagine in these times the way of life practiced in the Renaissance, but this was of course the norm back then and was certainly accepted. Fortunately, by about the eighteenth century the idea of marrying for love and friendship was taking hold and arranged marriages eventually became less. However, many powerful families and alliances were formed in the Renaissance due to this marriage practice and much of European history was formed as a result of these alliances as well.
