Legitimizing and Delegitimizing Unions Through the Ideal of Reproduction

In the opening chapter of the Hebrew bible, God commands, “Increase and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). While this may be a religious text, the charge is a universal one. The continuance of the human race relies on reproduction, and it is through the institution of marriage that this process has been organized across centuries and traditions. 

The widespread distinction of a child “born out of wedlock” is a testament to the central role that marriage played in ancient and medieval reproduction. Deuteronomy 23:2 imposes restrictions on illegitimate children, while in Rome, illegitimate children took on limited inheritance rights (McDougall 68). By the later medieval period in Europe, these children began to carry a social stigma alongside inheritance restrictions. While some early theologians, such as Paul, distilled marriage into an institution that controlled sexual activity that resulted in reproduction (1 Corinthians 7:1-2), the necessity of having children legitimized and delegitimized different types of relationships across the ancient and medieval worlds. 

 In the Christian tradition, Augustine moves beyond Paul to state his support in “the bonding of society in its children” and to laud reproduction as “the one honorable fruit” of the “sexual conjunction” of a married couple in an essay called The Excellence of Marriage (1). In Augustine’s construction, reproduction is not just an acceptable byproduct of a sex-controlling institution, but a motivating good of these unions. 

A fifteenth century depiction of Jupiter kissing his mortal lover, Ganymede (Maître François, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

If the ability of a union to produce children makes it good, then by that same logic, a union unable to result in reproduction can be stigmatized. This very logic is wielded in “Ganymede and Helen,” a twelfth century French poem by an unknown Christian author, which employs the characters of ancient epic to rebuke homosexuality. When Ganymede does not actively engage with Helen’s sexual advances, she first declares that “The natural order is overturned and law destroyed through you” (line 115), further asking Ganymede, “why, since you will not produce children // your father produced you?” (lines 116-117). Throughout the text, Ganymede is arguing in favor of having sex with other men, declaring himself disinterested in “replacing my face” (line 125). Helen primarily uses the inability of such a union to produce children as an indication of it being unnatural, calling his “Venus sterile and fruitless” (line 225). The text inexplicably concludes with the marriage of Ganymede and Helen, clearly positioning the sexually productive union of man and woman as superior. However, it is not just same-sex couples that face infertility. 

A portion of the Laudatio Turiae inscription (By Unknown artist - Jastrow (2006), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1715554).

In the so-called Laudatio Turiae, a first century BCE funerary inscription, such a situation was documented. The husband, who seemingly commissioned the stone inscription, writes “when I could not have children from yourself, you wanted me to have them through your good offices and, since you despaired of bearing children, to provide me with offspring by my marriage to another woman” (29). Although his wife "proposed a divorce outright” the inscription goes on to clarify that she wished to remain in the household to “take upon yourself the duties and the loyalty of a sister and a mother-in-law” (27). Her husband praises, but also vehemently rejects, such a proposal. As he explains, “What desire, what need to have children could I have had that was so great that I should have broken faith for that reason?” (29). While Turia represents an attitude toward marriage that hinges on its ability to produce children — an attitude often apparent in high-ranking families seeking heirs for succession — Turia’s husband recognizes a value in their bond distinct from this fruit. 

Interestingly, Christian authors like Augustine have a similar attitude. On the question of an infertile marriage, he writes “The marriage bond remains, even if because of evident infertility no children result, despite the fact that this was the reason for entering into the marriage” (15). Here, Augustine recognizes a value of the bond, but importantly he stipulates that the union was entered under the auspices of an ability to have children. 

 Ultimately, though the necessity of reproduction appears across cultures and traditions, its relationship to marriage, though often present, reflects nuance and variance. In traditions like Christianity, with its very ascetic views on sex, marriage is critically linked to reproduction. The ability to have children legitimizes and delegitimizes certain relationships. In high-ranking contexts where children secure financial or ruling futures, the goal of reproduction can be conceived as a legitimate reason to divorce or have a concubine. For example, the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, which ruled from the sixth-eighth century CE, was known to largely recognize any man born to a royal father as a possible successor (McDougall 68). 

Our modern attitudes creep closer to that of the ancient or high-ranking family — particularly the positions of Turia and her husband from the first century BCE. The growing popularity of IVF, sperm or egg donation, and surrogacy reflect a culture that believes in the necessity of creative solutions for couples to have children, while acknowledging that a natural ability to conceive does not legitimize or create value in marriages. 

Works Cited 

 Laudatio Turiae = Wistrand, Erik, trans. The So-Called Laudatio Turiae: Introduction, Text, Translation, Commentary (Göteborg, 1976). 

Ganymede & Helen = Boswell, John, trans. “Ganymede and Helen,” in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago, 1980). 

Augustine of Hippo, The Excellence of Marriage = Kearney, Ray, trans., “Marriage and Virginity: The Excellence of Marriage, Holy Virginity, The Excellence of Widowhood, Adulterous Marriages, Continence. Vol. I/9,” in Rotelle, John, Hunter, David, eds., The Works of Saint Augustine (2nd Release). Electronic Edition. (New York, 1999). 

McDougall, Sara, “The Carolingian Example: The Sons of Concubines,” in Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy, 800-1230 (Oxford, 2016), 66-93.