Piano and Piano on The Medieval Origins of Spousal Consent

Clara Piano, University of Mississippi Department of Economics, and Enio Piano have published The Medieval Origins of Spousal Consent. Here is the abstract.

This paper examines the medieval origins of spousal consent, the norm requiring that marriages be contracted willingly and free from pressure from third parties. We argue that this norm resulted from the Catholic Church’s consolidation of legal authority over marriage in Western Europe in the 11th-12th centuries. Committed doctrinally to the belief that marriages could not be dissolved and that remarriage was therefore impermissible (i.e., marriage indissolubility), the Church was compelled to enforce high consent requirements to the formation of new unions. Using a simple theoretical model, we show that the Church’s optimal level of spousal consent is higher when remarriage is not allowed. Higher consent requirements mitigate the negative effect of indissolubility on the number of marriages contracted. The development of a theory of spousal consent marked a sharp break from pre-Christian practice, which gave parents substantial control over the choice of spouse. It also contrasted with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, both of which permitted remarriage after divorce. Our analysis suggests that the Church’s insistence on free consent was a necessary institutional complement to its unique stance on indissolubility, shaping marriage law and family structure in ways that reverberated throughout European history.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.