Love and Marriage: They Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage?

In her first letter to Peter Abelard, Heloise d’Argenteuil claims that given a choice between marrying “Augustus, ruler of the world” and being called Abelard’s “whore” (56), the latter would always be dearer. 

It’s a stunning claim, often understood to be a hyperbolic declaration of her love — a love so strong, she would be willing to demean herself to indulge in it. But, when given the option to marry Abelard, Heloise tries to dissuade him “from this marriage … and its disastrous bed” (56). It is true that, though Heloise’s “heart belonged only to [Abelard],” she never wished for a marriage (55). Of this conviction, she famously writes, “The name of wife may have the advantage of sanctity and safety, but to me the sweeter name will always be lover or, if your dignity can bear it, concubine or whore” (55).

For Abelard and Heloise, marriage certainly seemed the solution to their controversial romance: a young woman fornicating with her live-in tutor under the roof of her uncle, a high-ranking church official, in twelfth-century Paris. And though Heloise advises against it, the marriage that would make their affair licit eventually is forced upon her. Nevertheless, Abelard is castrated and the couple is forced to separate, with Abelard becoming a monk and Heloise an abbess. Years later, Heloise would write her first letter to Abelard, making the declarations described above. 

To a modern reader of this letter, Heloise’s position seems a paradox. In modern popular culture, marriage assumes love, but in her letter, Heloise claims she “preferred love over marriage” (56). In one line, she suggests that two concepts which seem inextricably linked are distinct choices. By disaggregating love and marriage, Heloise frames forbidden relationships as love-filled, parroting a surprisingly common concept in the period’s love literature.

Like the opening of this first letter, Heloise’s musings on marriage creates several false binaries: between love and marriage, being called a lover and a wife, or a concubine or whore and a wife. She implicitly characterizes love as being associated with the lover, concubine, and whore, and the title of wife with the formal bond of marriage. In this construction, the latter is entirely devoid of feeling.

While Heloise’s view that her love — characterized as all-consuming, irreplaceable, and seemingly critical to her sense of self — cannot be captured in the bond of marriage, the literary language of love during this century captures a similar sentiment. Together, Heloise's letter and the larger canon of twelfth-century troubadour love poems capture a surprising popular conception of the relationship between love and marriage which dignifies the experience of the forbidden lover. 

The troubadour love poems of the twelfth century rarely mention the bonds of marriage. The lovers they describe are having secret affairs (Non chant per auzel ni per flor, 65), lamenting the parting which must take place at dawn (En un vergier sotz fuella d'albespi, 129), or begging a watchman to keep a lookout for a woman’s husband while she sleeps with another man (Gaita be, gaiteta del chastel, 103). These poems rely heavily on natural imagery to characterize love, which contrasts sharply with the conspicuously absent and manmade law of marriage.

While we cannot be certain that Heloise was consuming this literary language of love, one which was primarily developing in the southern Occitan region and would have only been brought north later in her life, their shared implicit claim that love is a thing found outside of marriage should not be deemed a coincidence. It's unlikely that this concept was isolated to this region in the south of France and Heloise’s mind. Instead, these semi-disparate examples suggest that this concept pervaded society.

What does such a concept mean for the reality of the forbidden lover? While it is unreasonable to assume medieval marriages were devoid of love, it seems likely that, insofar as love — especially forbidden love — is seen as a product of human nature, the position of the forbidden lover was publicly understood and perhaps even sympathized with. 

Although Heloise’s claim that the terms “lover,” “concubine,” or “whore” would be sweeter seems a shocking one, in the context of a literary language of love that romanticizes the forbidden lover as an epitome of feeling her wish makes more sense. She is not saying that she would be willing to demean herself in order to be with Abelard; rather, she is reflecting a popular conception of love that privileges the feelings associated with those relationships and conceives marriage as a man-made “chain” of natural “feeling.”

Works Cited

D'Argenteuil, Heloise, = Levitan, William, trans. Abelard and Heloise: The Letters and Other Writings (Cambridge, 2007), 49-62.

Troubadour Poetry = Kline, A.S., trans. From Dawn to Dawn: Troubadour Poetry (2018).

Image one = Depiction of Abelard and Heloise from the Rijksmuseum, public domain.

Image two = Fifteenth century drawing of troubadours from an unknown artist, public domain.

Medieval Poetry and the Romanticization of Unequal Love in Affairs

In the medieval world, love was something often left on the backburner of society. We often see marriages that are devoid of affection and are actually a tactical alliance between families to secure wealth and honor. So, it is no wonder that there were many instances of affairs driven by true love (if indeed such a thing exists). To have an affair was already wrong, but to have an affair with someone of a lower social status, as we see in some cases, was even worse. It completely jeopardized the social order that had been formed by the marriage in question. However, medieval literature seems to have a different view. Works such as troubadour poetry and the Andalusi Arabic poem Nuniyya actually romanticize affairs, specifically utilizing and idealizing the trope of the “unequal lovers". These poems reframe inequality between lovers as a denotation of the purity of their love, with it persisting through time, rejection and social and monetary barriers, and turning from juvenile love to adoring servitude. Thus, when forbidden love is presented in the form of an affair specifically between unequal lovers, what is actually a morally and socially reprehensible relationship is transformed into the purest form of love, with this inequality serving as its sturdy foundation.

Within both the Nuniyya and many troubadour poems, the affairs described often involve the poet writing from the perspective of a lowly man who yearns for a married noblewoman. However, rather than presenting this inequality as a barrier to love, the poets depict it as a propagator of it, pushing their love to last until they finally can be together. In Ibn Zaydun’s Nuniyya, the narrator laments over the distance between him and his lover, first describing their physical distance before noting their social distance. He states that he “could not afford [her]” in this life. However, this fact is not a deterrent of his love for her but actually propagates an eternal love that will push him to “find [her] in the stations of the last assembly” – referring to the afterlife – and “pay the price”. Thus, as he looks forward into their far future, when he can love her freely, it is clear that he anticipates loving her ceaselessly until then. So, this social inequality between them does not rebuff his love but strengthens it. His love is elevated from a finite feeling to an eternal longing.

In the works of famous troubadour poet Bernart de Ventadorn, this sociological power imbalance is not just a signifier of a love that will persist eternally. It also presents the narrator as a humble servant of the lady, whose unattainability only makes him love her more. In his poem Can vei la lauzeta mover, the poet asserts that he is no longer in control of himself, saying that “‘I’ has no power of ‘I’” ever since the day that he met this lady. He allows himself to be reduced to her servant, with no will nor control over himself. This social power imbalance thus has manifested as an emotional power imbalance where the poet fully submits himself to his lover, displaying how his love transcends his own autonomy. 

Furthermore, the dynamic created by this power imbalance seems to make the poet love her more. He describes how the lady he loves rejects him and “scorns his behest”, noting that she shows herself as “a woman indeed”. The acknowledgement of his rejection paired with this laudatory comment suggests that he understands the social imbalances that keep them apart and is only urged to further compliment her for how much of a lady she is for abiding by social expectations. This very imbalance, which makes their love impossible, also propagates his love and admiration for her. 

Thus, the power imbalance between lovers in an affair becomes central to the romantic appeal of these poems. It intensifies longing, making one’s love last eternally as he likely cannot be with his love in this lifetime. Since love cannot be shared on a peer-to-peer level, they adopt a servant and master dynamic, with the poet submitting themself to their lover. Even in cases where love is seemingly unrequited, the love-struck poet sees this to the merit of their beloved; by rejecting him, she upholds her nobility, making him love her only more. In this way, medieval love poetry reveals the paradoxical nature of love; the very constructs of society which make these relationships impossible are what elevate them to their purest form. By describing this type of unequal love, a love that can never be achieved in reality, the poets turn love itself into a perfect, purified and almost mythical concept. 

Works Cited:

Ibn Zaydun, The Nuniyya in The Literature of al-Andalus, ed. María Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin and Michael Sells (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Bernhart de Ventadorn, Can vei la lauzeta mover, in From Dawn to Dawn, trans. R.L. Kline (2009).

Sexuality in the Middle Ages: Either, Neither, Nor, Or?

In 1973, the narrative around sexuality shifted. Thanks to gay rights activism, clinicians were barred from classifying homosexuality as a mental illness and began treating it as an innate part of one's personhood (Feuerstein, "Birth of the Concept of 'Born This Way'"). Two generations later, the notion that sexuality is inherent and uncontrollable has been accepted as fact, with the majority of Americans believing that sexuality is natural, not a product of environment or personal choice (Saad, "More Say 'Nature' Than 'Nurture' Explains Sexual Orientation"). It can be unsettling, then, to be confronted with historical conceptions of sexuality. 

An infamous example of this is the anonymous twelfth-century poem "Ganymede and Helen." The poem features a debate between two characters from classical mythology: Ganymede, the young cupbearer of the gods, and Helen, a woman so famed for her beauty that it incited the Trojan War. To modern readers, Ganymede is presented as a gay man. Not only does he offer "to be passive" when Helen offers to have sex with him, but he later vehemently defends the virtues of male-male relationships to the detriment of heterosexual ones ("Ganymede and Helen," ln. 32, 118). But at the end of the poem, when Helen out-argues her opponent, "Ganymede asks to be granted her hand in marriage" ("Ganymede and Helen," ln. 263). This conclusion seems disjointed – moments ago, Ganymede was calling the vagina "'the yawning cave and the sticky bush,'" but now, he is more than happy to marry a woman ("Ganymede and Helen," ln. 230).

So why do Ganymede and Helen receive this heteronormative ending? The answer is that although a modern reader views Ganymede's sexuality as immutable, to the medieval reader, sexuality was conceived in an entirely different manner.

Firstly, sexuality was an act that someone did, not an identity that they were. The author of the poem makes this fact explicit when he refers to male-male intercourse as "this deed" that he is at risk of committing, despite lambasting it for the better part of three hundred lines ("Ganymede and Helen," ln. 270). That the author suggests that he runs the risk of participating in sodomy despite not approving of it proves a disconnect between action and identity. This makes sense during a period when many sex acts were considered sinful (the author himself asks for God's mercy should he commit sodomy ("Ganymede and Helen," ln. 270)): Separating these acts from one's character allowed them to repent and move past them, but accepting them as immutable would condemn a practitioner to Hell. 

In addition, one's sexual partner was just as important as the orientation itself, because sexuality was intertwined with ideas about beauty. In the debate, one of the only points that Helen and Ganymede can agree on is that old people are not deserving of homosexuality. Helen concedes that male-male sexual relations are not necessarily "a sin for youth," but she does declare that "no rationalization can defend the elderly," to which Ganymede agrees ("Ganymede and Helen," ln. 169-170, 173). Ganymede's explanation as to why is telling. Old people are ugly, since "they can already see white hairs," and so they are not entitled to the same sexual freedom as (attractive) young people ("Ganymede and Helen," ln. 174). Through this agreement, Ganymede and Helen reveal an unequal paradigm. Young, attractive people are granted a greater degree of sexual liminality, whereas undesirable people (the elderly and elsewhere, the poor) are relegated to unfun, productive sexuality ("Ganymede and Helen," ln. 135-136). 

This paradigm goes a long way in explaining why the couple is allowed to get married at the end of the poem, despite being at odds throughout it. Helen and Ganymede are described as "equal in loveliness," with each participant in the debate receiving a vivid description of their beauty ("Ganymede and Helen," ln. 16, 73-100). Even though Ganymede expresses distain for women throughout the poem, since Helen is his equal in beauty, this tension is dropped. Ganymede's distaste for heterosexual sex is shrugged off because the author presumes that sexuality is dependent not only on one's personal preferences but the partner involved as well. Even if Ganymede is not generally attracted to women, he must be willing to engage in heteronormative sex since his bride is so beautiful. 

The sexual logic of "Ganymede and Helen" is highly revealing about how the author viewed sexuality. It was not viewed as immutable but rather highly contingent on the desirability of the partners themselves. To a modern reader, this ending is so shallow that it borders on parody, but to a medieval audience, this would have rung true as the romantic logic of the day. Texts like "Ganymede and Helen" are valuable not only as an important attestation of medieval queerness, but more broadly as how conceptions of sexuality have shifted over the last millennium. 

Works Cited

Fuerstein, Christian. "Birth of the Concept of 'Born This Way.'" News & Stories. Mt. Holyoke. September 26, 2023. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/news/news-stories/birth-concept-born-way.

"Ganymede and Helen (Twelfth Century)." Translated by John Boswell. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era tot he Fourteenth Century. University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Saad, Lydia. "More Say 'Nature' Than 'Nurture' Explains Sexual Orientation." Gallup. May 24, 2018. https://news.gallup.com/poll/234941/say-nature-nurture-explains-sexual-orientation.aspx.

 

Medieval Romance Advice Column

Monk Debunks: A Medieval Romance Advice Column

Dear Monk,

My daughter, Theodora, just got married. My wife and I were both thrilled, but Theodora … somewhat less so. As a child, she had made a vow of chastity and pledged herself to Jesus. Eventually, we got her to agree to get married. But still, she said sex was off the table. We fought about this for years. Eventually we got her to walk down the aisle and actually marry her fiancée. But even then, with her legal husband by her side, she held fast to her vow of celibacy. How do I get her to abandon her silly infatuation with Jesus and become a real wife to her husband?

    - Haughty Auti

Dear Haughty Auti,

This same thing happened to a friend of mine. And he was a king, of all things! His story is pretty similar, with one major difference: his daughter was an only child, and the only hope he had of continuing his dynasty was for her to marry and produce an heir. He found a nice man and married her off. Sensing her slight hesitation, he got a traveling evangelist to pray for her. This is where it all went wrong. Instead of opening her eyes to the benefits of marriage, this man started preaching to her and her new husband (right as they were about to consummate the marriage, mind you!) about how horrible and filthy sex is. He even said that having children would “lead to ruin” and cause them to start “trashing orphans”! Orphans! He actually convinced them that children either would go crazy or turn to the devil, and that the parents would be full of greed. When the king came back to check in with them the next morning, his daughter told him she was “deeply in love” with her “true husband", meaning Jesus. The bridegroom agreed that, by embracing celibacy, the two of them were free of the “disease” that is sexuality. They declared their marriage, which, again, was the king’s only hope of continuing his line, to be just a “temporary” one. Suffice to say, he was furious. But did his rage manage to convince his daughter or her new husband? No. In fact, it likely only strengthened their resolve, just as in the case of your daughter. The love that these women had for Jesus was not forbidden until you made it so. It was not a holy struggle until you made her struggle. Theodora didn't take her vow of celibacy simply because she didn't like the idea of sex. She felt a higher caller, a much greater purpose, as did the king’s daughter. These women’s marriages to Jesus had divine consequences. To them, your concerns are worldly and small. How could your anger possibly sway her when she is fighting for something much more powerful? 

Your opposition only justified her fight. By opposing God, you are making yourself look like a devil, pushing and prodding her to break her sacred vows and distance herself from heaven. Those vows, in her mind, are infinitely more sacred than the marriage vows you forced her to make. In her eyes, renouncing her virginity for her husband would be the real sin. I’m sure that you and the king meant well–all you wanted was to get a bit of religious inspiration for your daughters. That’s not a crime! But your reactions made the situation much worse. 

At first glance, your opposition to Theodora’s choice seems driven by worries about wealth and your family’s reputation. Maybe it’s true that her life of poverty will ultimately be a pretty bad look not only for your family, but for all nobility. But can you honestly say that you weren’t upset at having your position as the head of the household challenged? Theodora demonstrated her reverence to God above all. What you may see as a violation of your will, she sees as her destiny. After all, as the Bible teaches us there is one thing that people should place before themselves - God’s love.

I understand that Theodora’s love for Jesus isn’t the kind of religious devotion you’re used to, and feels like a rejection of how women are supposed to behave in marriage. But this isn’t some adulterous affair; as far as she’s concerned, the marriage you arranged for her is the sinful one. My advice would be to allow Theodora to love Jesus as she pleases. You can fight all you want; it won’t do anything but push her further into Jesus’ arms.

    - Monk

Works Cited

Hunter, David G. Marriage and Sexuality in Early Christianity. Baltimore, MD, Minneapolis Minnesota: Project Muse, Fortress Press, 2018. 

Talbot, Charles Hugh, and Christina von Markyate. The Life of Christina of Markyate: A Twelfth Century Recluse. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press in association with the Medieval Academy of America, 2005. 

Consent in the East and West

Across the differing religions of the middle ages marriage has consistently raised questions of the differences in consent. In both Augustine of Hippo’s The Excellence of Marriage and the Hadiths (Sahih Muslim), consent is revealed as a necessary part of marriage yet it functions differently in that the Hadiths became a legal document, whereas The Excellence of Marriage is more of a theological opinion. The Hadiths present consent as a legal requirement to protect the validity of the contract of marriage. Whereas, Augustine highlights consent as needed for the spiritual good of marriage. In this post by comparing these two texts though far apart time wise and two very different religions they highlight that although both texts affirm the importance of consent that the purpose and function of the two different texts reveal how consent operated.

While he was Bishop of Hippo, Augustine wrote The Excellence of Marriage, weighing in on a fifth- century debate over Christian views of celibacy and sexuality. At this time, some Christians elevated virginity so highly, that marriage seemed almost spiritually compromising. In response, Augustine defends marriage, writing that it was still good even if he himself considered celibacy, a higher calling. Within this text, consent plays a vital role as Augustine draws on a Roman concept of marriage that requires a mutual agreement of a man and a woman. Further, Augustine emphasizes that marriage is grounded in the deliberate mutual joining of people together. In this way the marital bond is defined not by just intercourse but by shared intention and faithful commitment to God and each other. In this view, marriage was not just sex, but a shared intention to live together faithfully.

Though Augustine affirmed the active role of both parties in marriage, his framework was not entirely egalitarian, maintaining the hierarchical structure of gender roles which lends  the husband more authority. Additionally, for women who did not want to be married, “the extremely despicable woman who holds back from marriage, which is something permitted” (Augustine, 14). Highlights how women do have the right to abstain but by referring to those women as despicable rejection of being married seems to be frowned upon. Though he establishes the role of consent, he does not supersede the assumption about male leadership/domination. Specifically if one enters into a marriage too fast they are not allowed to leave, "they do not have the freedom to dissolve the bond, in the way they had the freedom not to enter it” (Augustine, 15). Though consent created the union between two people it does not permit withdrawal after giving that consent. The Excellence of Marriage functions as a doctrinal clarification on Augustine's religious teaching, not as civil law.

Now moving to the early Islamic faith, the Hadiths preserve the reports on the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad, traditionally passed down in the centuries and decades after his death. Within the Hadiths they are collections of narratives addressing marriage contracts, guardianship, and women's consent. The collection of Hadiths by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj is what I am focusing on. He was a Persian scholar of Hadiths. His collection, commonly known as Sahih Muslim, is regarded in Sunni Islam as one of the most authoritative compilations of prophetic reports, second only to that of al-Bukhari. The material is organized by legal topic, arranging narrations under thematic “books” that made the collection especially useful for jurists.

In Book 16, consent appears as a clear requirement of the validity of a marriage. However, related to sex within marriage,“ it is unlawful for the wife to refuse to come to her husband’s bed” (16.137 XX, Hadiths). Specifically, attributed to the idea that a previously married woman has a greater authority over herself in that she actually has to say yes or no for consent explicitly. Now, a virgin may not also be married without her permission. The distinction between the two is that a woman who has already been married has to give verbal consent whereas as a virgin anything she does can be considered consent and it doesn't need to be verbal. Specifically, “ a woman without a husband (or divorced or a widow) must not be married until she is consulted, and a virgin must not be married until her permission is sought. They asked the Prophet of Allah: how her( virgin’s) consent can be solicited? He (the Holy prophet said: “That she keeps silence”(16.75 Hadiths).

These distinctions reveal how consent in the Hadiths was very much focused on expectations of women's modesty. Though these two texts share a common theme the way in which they are presented differs. In comparing these texts separated by around five centuries, many miles, and faith traditions make it clear that consent was not absent from medieval religious understandings of marriage. Because both texts are so different, the way consent is presented is also different. Augustine was able to conceptualize marriage as rooted in mutual agreement within a patriarchal society. The Hadiths were able to similarly affirm that a woman’s permission is necessary for a valid marriage. The Hadiths became a foundational source for Sunni legal reasoning, and consent functioned not only as an ideal but as a condition directly tied to the legitimacy of the marriage contract within Islamic law. Discussions of consent in the Hadiths shaped concrete legal structures governing marriage contracts. At the same time, interpretation varied across different schools meaning that practice was not uniform throughout the Islamic world.

However, Augustine wrote as a theologian defending the goodness of marriage more part of religious canon rather than exact law. While the Hadiths were more directly put into legal doctrine, Augustine’s Christian discussion gradually developed into being part of canon law. In contrast, the Hadiths became embedded in the legal system where marriage was a contract with rights that were defined. Furthermore, for Augustine in The Excellence of Marriage, consent is an act of one's will establishing what is expected as a life long union ordered toward children and companionship. Seemings more directed toward a divinely sanctioned good. On the other hand in the Hadiths consent appears in what seems to be more procedural terms which makes sense because they were more so governing documents. In both traditions they seem to both affirm that a marriage should not occur without agreement. Augustine treats consent primarily as a theological bond of wills, whereas the Hadiths present it as a safeguard within a legal structure that regulates rights, responsibilities, and authority. Consent carries moral weight and in the Hadiths even more than that but legal weight.

Now as both traditions seem to affirm the need of consent, the limitations and qualifications placed upon women are interesting. In The Excellence of Marriage, Augustine of Hippo highlights how marriage is in mutual agreement yet maintains that men are still the ones in power. However, consent creates the bond but authority is still very gendered. Similarly in the Hadiths it highlights the distinction between explicit verbal consent for previously married women and silence as consent for virgins. However, women seem to have some authority but consent was still operating under male authority. Both texts rather than showing full equality they show an effort of the recognition of a woman's will.

The Last Card to Play: Consent and the Illusion of Choice

From Perseus snatching Andromeda from India to a young A’isha’s marriage to the Prophet Muhammad, love and (more commonly) marriage are present in religious doctrine and folklore alike. These narratives offer guidance and instruction on such relationships and interestingly reveal how consent was portrayed and understood. A recurring theme emerges: women’s agency to consent is often acknowledged yet quickly dismissed or warped. Through investigating the works of Ovid and the Muslim Hadiths discussing marriage, I argue that women’s consent in the Middle Ages was more of an illusion than a reality - present in concept but inconsequential in practice.

We begin with the ancient poet Ovid, whose beliefs about love would likely offend many modern readers. In the Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), Ovid describes himself as the tamer, teacher and employer of love, giving his reader (who is presumably a plucky young Roman aristocrat) advice on how to pursue women. In this comprehensive guidebook, Ovid repeatedly uses language which likens men to hunters, like a “wild-fowler” in the woods, intrinsically placing the woman in the position of the fowl in question – prey. And if this notion of women as conquest was too implicit for the Roman man who isn’t quite reading between the lines, Ovid makes the unsavory claim that women actually want to be raped: “It is force that pleases the girl”. 

Notably, Ovid does not suggest that women have no agency to consent or not. Rather, it seems that Ovid is all too aware of women’s attempts to exercise said agency. Thus, he distorts the act of rejection as simply a practice pertaining to the societal expectation of women, rather than any autonomous decision that a woman has made. In the eyes of Ovid, you are simply giving her what she wants “against her will”. Thus, Ovid acknowledges the concept of women’s agency to consent, but disregards it entirely in practice, reducing consent to an illusion or a performance rather than a necessity. This being said, it is important to note that many view this work as satirical rather than genuinely instructional. But I argue that satire inherently functions by dramatizing reality. Thus, even if Ovid does not explicitly endorse rape, his remarks still reflect contemporary attitudes toward consent.

The topic of consent also appears in religious narratives, where — much as in Ovid — women’s agency is addressed but ultimately undermined. For instance, consent is mentioned in the Hadiths, which are stories told about the life of Muhammad. On first glance, it may seem that the Islamic texts have a somewhat more “progressive” outlook on consent (though, I suppose Ovid has set a rather low bar) as Muhammad instructs that a virgin must be consulted before marriage. However, he immediately undermines himself, saying that “silence implies consent.” Once again, the question of consent is raised, and an answer is presented which appears to grant agency when, in reality, the word “yes” isn’t actually required. 

Further, since Muhammad’s assertion of women’s silence equating to consent comes after A’isha notes that the bride “feels shy” and cannot verbally consent, the narrative is twisted. Now, ‘silence as consent’ is not just another form of stripping a woman of any real ability to deny consent, but is rather something that was instructed to the service of women. This is reminiscent of Ovid’s assertion that a woman cannot say what she wants out loud, and thus it must be assumed that she consents. Again, agency is an illusion, and consent is made a guarantee.

It could be argued that a woman in this position could say no. However, medieval marriages weren’t all about finding love — these unions often had socio-economic consequences which created immense social pressure for women and made refusal much harder to give. Thus, consent had the potential to be the strongest of the few tools of agency given to the medieval woman: her last defense in a society that valued her primarily for physical use, and thus her last card to play. Yet, when such texts, whether satirical, secular or religious, repeatedly raise the evidently significant question of consent only to demean and distort it, even this final trump card suddenly becomes void.

Not only are these texts differentiated by genre and purpose, but they are also separated by centuries, cultures and geographical origins. The disparities between the two texts’ provenance strengthen the argument that this tendency to provide a false illusion of agency to consent is a repeated pattern - one which transcends time and place. This invites us as readers to examine other historical texts with similar attentiveness, trying to spot this seemingly pervasive phenomenon. Even further, it urges us to consider whether the gap between what is labelled “consent” and genuine freedom of choice for women has ever completely been bridged.

Works Cited:

Sahih Muslim 16, "The Book of Marriage," trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui (Original work compiled 9th century)

Ovid, The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria), trans. D.S. Kline (Poetry in Translation, 2001)

Who Gets to Consent?

The knight in shining armor is one of the most evocative modern images of the Middle Ages, and it dominated the minds of contemporaries  as well. However, the medieval idea of who was – and wasn’t – allowed to reject a man’s advances was decidedly different from ours. Take, for example, the different depictions of consent in the late tenth-century Life of Mathilda and the twelfth-century lai “Equitan” by Marie de France. At first glance, these texts seem decidedly different. After all, they don’t share a genre or even a time period – one is a saint’s life, and the other is a fictional poem written a century and a half later.

However, their similarities actually outweigh their differences. The authors of the texts are quite obscure, but both are believed to have been written by women. The Life of Mathilda was likely composed in a convent by a female cleric, and Marie de France identifies herself within her lais (Marie de France, “Guigemar,” 53). The texts also have quite similar audiences. The Life was written at the behest of Mathilda’s descendants, and Marie de France dedicates her Lais to a King Henry of England – either Henry II or his ill-fated son, Henry the Young (“The ‘Older Life,’” 71; Marie de France, “Guigemar,” 51, f. 1). Both texts also involve a nobleman pursuing an aristocratic woman (a common trope of the romance genre, but quite unorthodox for a saint’s life).

These similarities between the texts’ authors, audiences, and plots warrant comparing them. But to understand why depictions of consent exist as they do across these two texts, we should first establish what consent was for people of the medieval period, which is steeped in the Biblical view of marriage. Paul treats consent as a mutual agreement between spouses to abstain from sex, and otherwise sex is expected (1 Cor. 7:5, 4). However, he says nothing of consent before marriage. Consent in the Life of Mathilda is quite different; Mathilda’s consent as an individual is never mentioned, but the consent of her family is highly prized. Mathilda is whisked away by her future husband “unbeknownst to any of her relatives, save for her grandmother” and married (“The ‘Older Life,’” 74). In the eyes of a modern reader, this depiction of a marriage is horrifying – a young woman is kidnapped from her grandmother’s care and made to marry her kidnapper! However, the narrative itself does not highlight Mathilda’s lack of consent, but her family’s. It is made even more clear that this is the controversial aspect of Mathilda’s marriage. In a later Life of Mathilda, her grandmother explicitly protests to Henry that she cannot allow the marriage because “‘it is not our place to give her in marriage without the advice and consent of her family’” (“The ‘Later Life,’” 93, emphasis added). These two stories of Mathilda’s marriage are radically different, which can be explained by a stigma about a woman eloping without her family’s permission.

“Equitan” by Marie de France shows the opposite end of the spectrum of consent. In that lai (a short romance composed in verse), King Equitan proposes an affair to the wife of his provincial administrator (Waters, “Introduction,” in The Lais, 9; Marie de France, “Equitan,” 107). The wife is initially resistant, citing that she does not have the wealth or social position to ensure her own self-sufficiency, should Equitan end the affair (Marie de France, “Equitan,” 107). She eventually acquiesces, but the king must persuade her to “[grant] him her body” (Marie de France, “Equitan,” 109). This depiction of consent is starkly different from that in the Life of Mathilda. The affair is dependent on the wife’s individual consent, and that consent relies on independence from her lover. What accounts for this discrepancy between the texts? The most obvious difference between the two is the nature of the relationships. The Life depicts a marriage, which is both a public affair as well as an asset transfer between two families, as the Life demonstrates with Henry’s dowry to Mathilda (“The ‘Older Life,’” 75). As such, the consent of the families is as important – if not more – than that of the individuals involved. The relationship in “Equitan,” by contrast, is a courtly love affair, which is private in nature and much more tenuous, which the wife herself is well aware of. Women, then, are granted much more power in a love affair than in a marriage, since consent lies solely with them, rather than with their whole family.

The discrepancies between the Life of Mathilda and “Equitan” highlight the nuanced state of consent in the high Middle Ages. Consent was seen not as the mutual agreement between two people that is familiar to readers today, but rather a multi-layered and socially-influenced network of agreements that depended on different contexts.

Works Cited

Marie de France. Lais of Marie de France: Text and Translation. Edited and Translated by Claire M. Waters. Broadview Press, 2018.

Queenship and Sanctity: The Lives of Mathilda and the Epitaph of Adelheid. Translated by Sean Gilsdorf. Catholic University of America Press, 2004.

Sowing, Reaping, and Regulating: How Physical Detail Reveals the Logic of Islamic Marriage

In Book 16 of the Sahih Muslim, a ninth-century collection of prophetic traditions compiled during the formative period of Sunni law, marriage is presented as a central moral institution. These reports reflect an effort to define lawful sexuality, inheritance, and kinship within the early Muslim community. The fourth sura of the Qur’an, associated with the Medinan period of the seventh century CE, provides the scriptural foundation for that structure, outlining rules of marriage, divorce, and guardianship. Believers are warned not to “sever the ties of kinship” (Q 4:1); they must give women their dowries (Q 4:4); they are forbidden to inherit women against their will (Q 4:19); and they are reminded that God has “appointed heirs” and fixed shares (Q 4:33). Marriage, in other words, protects lines of descent. It secures who belongs to whom. It keeps the social field from becoming overgrown.

The hadith material in Sahih Muslim then turns to a more explicit register. In Chapter 19 of Book 16, the compiler records a discussion of whether a man may approach his wife from the front or from the back, so long as he does not penetrate the anus (Sahih Muslim, Book 16, ch. 19). A rumor circulates that intercourse from behind will produce a cross-eyed child. In response, the verse is cited: “Your wives are your tilth; go then unto your tilth as you may desire” (Sahih Muslim, Book 16, ch. 19; Q 2:223). The conversation, in other words, has shifted from dowries and heirs to bodies and positioning. This shift is not a break from Sahih Muslim’s moral vision, but one of its clearest expressions. The Qur’anic “tilth” verse, cited within the hadith discussion, becomes a lens for reading the rest of Book 16: a field is marked, cultivated, and entered for a purpose. The discussions of permissible positions, withdrawal (‘azl), and intercourse with a pregnant captive woman show that consent is automatically embedded in lawful access to the field.

Start with position. Chapter 19 permits vaginal intercourse from different angles but prohibits anal penetration (Sahih Muslim, Book 16, ch. 19). “As you may desire” (Q 2:223) does not mean anywhere. Desire moves within furrows already drawn. The procreative site is the field; anal penetration lies outside it. Lawful access to the wife’s body exists because marriage establishes it, but that access is directional. The act must remain oriented toward the cultivated ground. The boundary is what makes the access lawful in the first place. Consent, then, is structured by the field’s geography. Marriage supplies prior authorization for intercourse, so long as it remains within the procreative site. The woman’s agency is not framed as ongoing negotiation over each act; rather, consent is embedded in the marital contract itself. Sex ordered toward procreation is presumed licit, even if the wife’s individual desire is not foregrounded in the discussion.

Withdrawal in Chapter 22 raises a different question: what happens when one enters the field but does not want to fertilize his seed? On campaign, men took captive women and, wishing to avoid the complications of pregnancy, considered ‘azl before ejaculation. The Prophet’s reported response shifts the scale: every soul destined to be born will be born; birth is “ordained by Allah” (Sahih Muslim, Book 16, ch. 22). Here the men attempt to manage the harvest. They enter the field but try to control whether anything grows. Yet unlike the earlier discussion of position, where lawful access defined the boundaries of consent, withdrawal exposes an asymmetry. The decision to interrupt fertilization rests with the man, even though the woman’s body bears the consequences. Consent here is not about whether intercourse occurs, but about how its outcome is managed. The reply reminds them that cultivation ultimately answers to God. Technique does not nullify decree, and growth is never merely biological. A child changes legal realities, because paternity determines inheritance, precisely the concern of Qur’an 4:33. The question of withdrawal is therefore not only about a man’s desire; it is about whether one can exercise sexual access while attempting to limit the obligations that follow from it.

Chapter 23 really gets into the weeds of the woman as a “tilth”. Intercourse with a pregnant captive woman is condemned: “How can he own him (the child to be born) and that is not lawful for him?” (Sahih Muslim, Book 16, ch. 23). Timing now threatens the integrity of the harvest. If the field is already bearing another man’s seed, further entry risks confusion over paternity. In a system that carefully enumerates heirs (Q 4:33), restricts lawful partners (Q 4:22–25), and insists on justice in marriage (Q 4:3, 4:129), descent must remain clear. The prohibition protects the crop from dispute, because a field cannot produce contested lineage without undermining the entire structure of inheritance and belonging.

Across these rulings, explicit sexual detail is not ornamental; it is not a surprise cheeky ending for the reader. It is law applied most intimately, most viscerally to the body. Sex position determines whether one remains in the cultivated ground, ‘azl tests whether human intention can truly interrupt divinely governed growth, and prohibiting intercourse with a pregnant woman protects the clarity of the harvest. Each rule enacts marriage’s larger purpose: to prevent disorder by disciplining access to the field. In Book 16, consent is a condition of marriage, a marriage that grants lawful access to the field, and divine command marks the fields’ boundaries. Within those lines, intimacy is legitimate because it is ordered, but outside them, it becomes transgression. The sudden turn to explicit sexual detail reveals the core logic of marriage in Islam: the field is marked, access is therefore granted, and within that cultivated space, consent, authority, and piety grow together.

Works cited:

Abdel Haleem, M. A. S. (Trans.). (2004). The Qur’an. Oxford University Press.

Siddiqui, A. H. (Trans.). (2007). Sahih Muslim (Vols. 1–4). Dar-us-Salam. (Original work compiled 9th century)