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story Church and marriage through the ages
Marriage was recognized as a sacrament relatively late in the
history of the church, around the beginning of the 13th century. According to
the theology of the sacrament, the couple, not the priest, marry each
other.
Prior to the Council of Trent in 1545, marriage commonly had two
ceremonies: the betrothal ceremony, which we now call engagement, and the
nuptial ceremony, or wedding. The betrothal gave the engaged couple the right
to live together. If the couple had a child, that was taken to be the
consummation of their marriage, and a wedding ceremony might or might not
follow after. The current tradition in Catholic weddings dates from the Council
of Trent when the church decreed that it must be represented at the wedding
ceremony in the presence of a priest.
Interestingly, the emphasis on the indissolubility of marriage,
which started in the Middle Ages, came about because the church was trying to
protect young people from the interference of their elders, said Lisa Cahill, a
theology professor at Boston College. Especially in elite, royal families,
young people were both married and divorced on the decision of their parents,
Cahill said. Granting young people the freedom to make their own decisions as
to marriage was a gradual process that happened over time.
Indeed, Gail Risch, a lecturer in theology at Creighton University
and a researcher at Creightons Center for Marriage and Family, noted that
two or three generations ago some version of arranged marriage was still common
among Americans. The romantic view of marriage as an arrangement that concerns
the couple only is rather recent, said Risch.
Risch is investigating whether the increase in cohabitation before
marriage seen during the past few decades in the United States represents a
swing back to attitudes prevailing before 1700 when weddings routinely followed
pregnancy and childbirth.
A recent positive development of the churchs role in
marriage is the marriage preparation that the Catholic church now demands of
couples, [Michael] Lawler of Creighton University said.
A study the Center for Marriage and Family conducted in 1995
revealed that 70 percent of participating couples found marriage preparation
useful to them. Respondents said what was particularly helpful was marriage
preparation programs application of psychology in terms of whats
frequently called the five Cs: communication, commitment, conflict-resolution,
children and career. Rated less successful was the programs explanation
of sacramental issues such as the connection between marriage and church or the
influence of religion on marriage.
-- Margot Patterson
National Catholic Reporter, December 28, 2001
[corrected 01/11/2002]
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