Family in Europe History - Assignment Example

Family in Europe History What was the nature of marriage as a religious and civil ceremony? Marriage is the result of a man and a woman taking anoath of spending their lives together and looking after the needs of each other. At the time when the Church held sway over the lives of the people it attempted to control the act of marriage by giving it a religious flavour, by making it one of the sacraments. Though the Reformists opposed this use of marriage being a sacrament as the means to maintain control on the marriage ceremony, they too followed the requirement for the marriage ceremony, which includes the speaking of the words that tie the man together to take place within a church and under the supervision of a clergyman. Thus marriage as a religious ceremony consisted of the man and woman taking their oath in a church environment under the supervision of a member of the clergy. As the written word became more in use and the Church gradually introduced forms a form of registering marriages on paper, so that it could uphold any scrutiny. These practices of the Church were not necessarily followed in all parts of Europe. In these parts of Europe the marriage ceremony was purely a civil ceremony with the marriage ceremony taking place outside the environment of the Church and in the presence of an important civilian or an individual with legal authority like a notary. Thus the oath between the man and woman in a civil ceremony were taken in homes, most often at the residence of the bride with a civilian authority presiding over the marriage ceremony. The marriage ceremony under this practice included the creation of an official document that gave the marriage legal status. (1). 2. What were the rituals associated with marriage? The rituals associated with marriage started with the negotiations on the contract of marriage between the man and woman and on arriving at an agreement the contract was signed. The next ritual was the publishing of the three wedding banns in the Church, which was a step taken by the Church to verify any impediments in marriage between the individuals and the series of banns started three weeks prior to the wedding. Dowry was an accepted social norm and it was often paid in instalments with the final instalment on the wedding day. In some arrangements the payment of dowry instalments extended into the first year of marriage. Betrothal was the most significant ritual associated with marriage. The betrothal was celebrated ceremoniously, as it was considered a step in establishing the relationship between the man and woman. The significance of the betrothal becomes obvious from the difficulty associated with breaking off a betrothal in those times in comparison to the ease with which engagements are broken off these days. The ritual of betrothal gradually paled in significance essentially on the prompting of the Church, which had no role to play in it. The final ritual of marriage is the wedding ceremony. Besides the taking of the marital vows between the man and the woman and the solemnization of the marriage by a clergyman in the case of a Church wedding, there are several gestures and rituals that formed the part of the wedding ceremony that had no legal significance Exchanging of rings, drinking of wine, breaking the cup, kissing the bride and holding hands. Having a wedding feast after the formal function of the wedding was a normal. Cake, food and wine, music and dancing were essential elements to the wedding feast. The rituals associated with the celebration of the wedding essentially provided the means for the community to become aware of the marriage of the man and woman. (1). 3. What was the nature of the relationship between the husband and woman? The nature of the relationship between man husband and wife is not easy to evaluate as it was essentially a private affair. Yet, based on what is known it is possible to throw light on the subject. The Christian religion though upholding equality of all human beings in the eyes of God, did lay the foundation for the belief that women were the weaker sex and hence the impression that the partnership between a man and woman in marriage was an unequal one tilted in favour of the man. This may have been true among the aristocracy, where the submissive role of the woman was the popular norm in varying periods of history. It was an accepted norm that the man was the breadwinner of the family and in rural areas it was the man tilled the fields and was associated with physical labour involved in creating the produce of the land with very little assistance from the woman, who was responsible for all the domestic activities in the upkeep of a household. Such a division of labour suggests a more equal partnership between the man and the woman in the sharing of the activities involved in the upkeep of a home and greater equality in the relations between the husband and wife. This equality in their nature of the relationship between husband and wife is more emphasized among the poorer segments of people living in towns. The earning capacity of the husband may not suffice for the needs of the home and in many such instances the wife, besides her domestic duties also went to seek whatever work she could find to augment the breadwinning role of the husband. It is only in the sexual relationship between the husband and wife is it clear that the relationship was not balanced and tilted ion favour of the husband. Sex may not have been an enjoyable experience to women in those days, but the woman was duty bound to have sex with her husband as and when he demanded it. Furthermore should the man not be faithful to the wife and stray outside for sexual satisfaction, it was looked upon a failing of the wife and not the fault of the husband. At the same time society demanded that the woman remains faithful to the husband irrespective of any circumstances and so the wife tended to remain faithful to the husband. (1). 4. What popular beliefs and practices affected conception and childbirth? Controlling conception was limited in those times, though manipulation of conception was practised in terms of increasing fertility or influencing the sex of the offspring. At a time when infant mortality was high fertility and conception were the rule of the day with many women conceiving in the first year of their marriage and children coming in succession every year. The average age for conception was forty, which indicates that women over the age of forty also conceived. With having children considered to be good manipulation in sexual practices was towards conception rather than avoiding conception. These manipulations were based on beliefs and practices of the times. Weddings were timed to coincide with late spring and early summer, about the time of the summer solstice as these were the periods in the year that were believed the best for conception. However, after the first conception married couples followed a sort of cyclic pattern in their conceptions. Another belief with regard to the outcome of conception was the behavior and attitude of the couple during the sexual act. The responsibility for such conduciveness in attitude and behavior was shared equally between husband and wife and an orgasm occurring simultaneously for the husband and wife was taken to be a definite sign of conception. This probably led to the reasoning in those times that a woman who had been raped could not bear a child from that act. In addition there was the belief that the timing and type of sexual intercourse had a role to play in the sex of the offspring. Another belief was that women were most fertile immediately after their menstruation. The stress on conception only increased the importance of fertility of women. Not having a child was considered to be the fault of the woman, as she was considered to be barren. Not having male children was also a fault of the woman and had a social stigma attached to it. Mothers who were breastfeeding their offspring were considered not to be in a fertile state, as their fertility was converted into breast milk. This stress on fertility does not means that no steps were taken to limit the number of children in a family. Family sizes indicate that some steps were taken to limit the number of children, once the requirement of capacity to bear enough children with an adequate number of males had been met. Conception and childbirth remained essentially elements of the world of women and women depended on other women to clarify their doubts on conception, pregnancy and childbirth. Women during delivery were attended on by other women in the family, their only qualification being that they were women. Professional assistance was present in the form of the midwife, who was respected by both men and women on the basis of her experience and skills in the delivery of a child. (1). 5. Describe the medical activities associated with birth and explain its problems. The invasion of the world of women only started gradually in the sixteenth century with the advent of the medical profession. Initially the medical profession consisting of men only reserved their interest in childbirth to mere theoretical knowledge. The gradual advance began by the medical profession beginning to influence childbirth with their role in guiding midwives on childbirth. This guiding relationship with the midwives in childbirth in the form of physicians coaching them on how to improve, while the midwives did the delivery continued till the nineteenth century from when on the medical profession started to play a larger role in childbirth. This larger role stemmed from the rationale of the male dominated medical profession that women in childbirth were being deprived of the knowledge that the medical profession through the sole reliance on the midwives during childbirth. The medical professionals considered the midwives incompetent of handling deliveries as their knowledge on childbirth was limited to the knowledge of a woman delivering a child. Women still found it more comforting to deliver their children through a midwife than a male doctor and so the demand for midwifes to attend childbirth continued. To offset the deficiencies in midwifes to handle childbirth training on childbirth was provided to the midwives. It became the norm for the midwife to take charge of the normal deliveries and call in a physician or surgeon should there be a complication. Only the surgeon was entitled to use instruments to assist in surgery. Yet the in many cases the lack of availability of any antibiotics led to the losing of women or babies, when the delivery was complicated, which occurred during the presence of a male doctor during childbirth. This practice of midwife for normal deliveries and the physician or surgeon assisted deliveries in case of complication led to the belief that the presence of the male doctor was a sure sign that either the mother or the child would die. Utilizing doctors for childbirth was expensive and a social norm set in whereby doctors attended to childbirths of the upper classes, while midwives continued their role of delivering babies among the deprived sections of society. (1). Works Cited 1. Gottlieb. “The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age”. Oxford University Press. Oxford, p.68-131. Read More