The medieval family

The medieval European family was a product of diverse origins and influences. The family and kinship customs of the Germanic tribesmen, the legal system inherited to a large extent from the Romans, the ideals of Christianity and dominance of the church, and the emergence of feudalism all played a part in shaping the European family of the medieval and postmedieval periods.

The countries of the eastern Mediterranean retained the ideals of patrilineal descent to a greater extent and for much longer than those to the west, where an emphasis on bilateral descent (equal reckoning of kinship from both sides of the family) replaced the more formal structure of the Roman gentes. In northern Europe the Germanic and probably also the Celtic tribes were organized largely on a bilateral basis. Membership in the kin group could be achieved through either one's father or one's mother. The ancient clans of the Irish and Scots, for example, were actually almost tribes, with marriage permitted inside or outside the clan and membership often being determined by residence rather than strictly by descent. Marriage, in fact, was permitted to close kin among the pre-Christian Germanic tribesmen, a practice that no doubt reinforced family ties. Among the Germanic tribesmen monogamy was the norm, but concubines were also permitted.

With the spread of Christianity, close kin marriage came to be forbidden, under penalty of slavery, though concubinage continued for several centuries. (Though they were not allowed to marry, even priests openly took concubines and raised families.) From the 4th century, close kin forbidden as spouses included first cousins, certain relatives through marriage, and even “fictive” kin such as godchildren. In the 11th century the prohibitions were extended yet further, though they were contracted again in the 13th century. Divorce, which had been permitted by the Greeks, the Romans, and the tribesmen of northern Europe, also came to be forbidden or, initially, at least made extremely difficult.

Of all these changes, the prohibition on close kin marriage was perhaps the most significant. Both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas argued that marriage outside the group increased kinship ties between communities, thus breaking down the undesirable solidarity of close-knit groups. The church, in a sense, broke the authority of the extended family and kin group. Marriage outside the group also tended to disperse rather than concentrate inherited property and thereby lessened the power and influence of kin-based groups. It is difficult to determine whether these reforms were introduced with the intention of decreasing the authority of families and close-knit communities in preference to the authority of the church or whether this consequence was merely coincidental. Certainly they were not specifically justified on scriptural grounds. Whatever their reason, the changes in marriage prohibitions dramatically altered the nature of the family in much of Western Europe, changing it from an extended and essentially self-contained unit with authority over its own members to a smaller, nuclear unit ceding much of its former authority to the church.

Another long-term effect of the decrease in the solidarity of larger kin groups was the increase in importance of the conjugal bond, which in the Middle Ages replaced the large kin group as the focus of familial ties. Here, too, the church was a major force in change, for example, in requiring that those who were to be married consent to the union. Thus, marriage arrangements could not rest solely in the hands of household heads, although marriage was certainly much more a matter for the family as a whole than it is in modern Europe. A gradual change toward the modern family took place in the late Middle Ages, with women and children being recognized as having rights of their own, independent of the head of the household, and with the emergence of the nuclear family or small, core kin group as the basic unit of both production and social life. (The Black Death, which killed about a third of the inhabitants of Europe between 1347 and 1351, may also have been a factor, but recent research suggests that family practices were much less affected by the Black Death than were other social institutions. In fact, changes toward nuclear family organization had taken place in northern Europe long before the 14th century.)

Accompanying these changes was a change in custom regarding the transfer of property at marriage. The Germanic peoples had a custom of paying bridewealth, livestock and other goods transferred at marriage from the bridegroom and his family to the family of the bride. This practice occurred in much of Europe through the Middle Ages, but toward the end of this period there was a marked trend instead toward dowry, payment from the bride's family to the groom for the upkeep of his new spouse. In some cases both kinds of payment existed simultaneously. The reasons for the shift in emphasis are a matter of debate among historians and are no doubt related in complex ways to other social trends in the organization of the domestic economy and of society in general.

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