Roman Catholic Church
Betrothal: re-establishing an
ancient Catholic marriage type

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An ancient optional type of Roman Catholic marriage:
During the 12th century CE, a conflict existed between
the Romans and northern Europeans over precisely what established a marriage.
Gratian, the master of the school of law at the University of Bologna,
suggested a compromise. Vestiges of that settlement remain to this day as Canon 1061 in the
Catholic
Code of Canon Law. 1061 states that mutual consent makes a marriage ratified and
valid; sexual intercourse makes it ratified and consummated -- and therefore
indissoluble.
From the 12 to 16th century, there were two permissible marriage types, depending upon
whether the couple gave their mutual consent for marriage before or after living together:
 | Marriage or nuptialia: The couple was married by mutual consent,
then started to live together and engage in sexual intercourse. The result
is an indissoluble marriage, that usually resulted in pregnancies. This is
the only marriage type to survive to the present time. |
 | Betrothal or sponsalia: The couple first became recognized as
unmarried spouses in a church ritual. They then lived together, engaged
sexual intercourse, and typically launched a pregnancy. The couple then went
through a wedding ritual by mutual consent. The end result was an
indissoluble marriage. |
These two optional marriage styles continued to be available until the
Council of Trent (1545 to 1563 CE) when the betrothal form
was banned. With the passage of four and a half centuries since the Council, the betrothal
form has been almost completely forgotten. 1

Today's situation:
During the late 1970s, the U.S. Census Bureau created the acronym POSSLQ (for
Partners of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters). In 1992, the Bureau in
1993 determined that 6,085,284 POSSLQ couples were "living in sin."
2 Probably about this time, most
American opposite-sex couples of all religious affiliation -- and none -- started
living together before marriage in the U.S. 6 By 2007, we strongly suspect that most Roman
Catholic couples have adopted this practice in spite of their church's teaching.
Chuck Lamar, a deacon at Light of the World Parish in Littleton,
Colorado, who has 20 years' experience helping couples prepare for marriage has
said:
"A great percentage I see -- I'd guess it's well over 50 percent -- are
already living together when they come to be married."
7
The Roman Catholic church does not approve of cohabitation before marriage,
The Family Life Office of the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati
has stated:
"The Catholic Christian community looks upon marriage as the public
promise of a man and a woman to a covenant of mutual unselfish love,
fidelity, permanence and openness to children. Further, the Sacrament of
Marriage is a sign of God’s love for humanity and Christ’s love for the
Church. Couples who cohabit (that is, who live together in a sexual
relationship when not married), have not formally pledged themselves to
these values, nor has the Catholic Christian community formally committed
itself to supporting the couple. Lacking a public acknowledgment, the
community cannot be sure of the couples’ intentions. Such a couple cannot sacramentally model God’s love for humanity and Christ’s love for the
Church. Therefore, the Church doesn’t approve of cohabitation, nor see it as
a fitting or appropriate preparation for marriage. By desiring a sacramental
marriage, the engaged couple is asking for 'a marriage in the Lord,' and for
God to be the 'third partner' in the marriage."
The Parish of St. Joseph in the Diocese of Gaylord, MI states:
"Catholics who do not marry according to the laws of the Church exclude
themselves from the right to receive Eucharist until they have corrected
their situation according to the Church. This is also true with those living
together before marriage. Living together before marriage is a serious
affront to the Catholic Christian belief about human sexuality, sex, and the
Christian family and reflects an attitude of opposition to the values of the
Catholic Christian community. Statistics indicate that those living together
before marriage have a higher rate of divorce."
4
Still, the modern living together arrangement bears many points of similarity
to the betrothal or sponsalia of the to 12th to 16th century Catholic custom:
They decide to live together by mutual consent, engage sexual intercourse, and
typically avoid a pregnancy through the use of birth control -- whether Natural
Family Planning (NFP) or conventional means. Later, the couple may go through a
ritual wedding by mutual consent. The end result would then be an indissoluble
marriage. What is missing from the Middle Ages betrothal is some form of simple church ritual by which the
couple could indicate to the congregation that they were about to cohabitate and
ask for the support of the membership in their decision to live together.

The proposal:
Michael Lawler (director of the Creighton Center for Marriage and
Family, and a professor emeritus of Catholic theology at Creighton University)
and
Gail Risch (an instructor of ethics at Creighton) jointly wrote an article that was published in the 2007-JUN issue of U.S. Catholic
magazine. They conclude that, in recent decades, most Catholic couples have "reverted
to the pre-Tridentine sequence: cohabitation and sexual intercourse, then the
wedding." ("Pre-Tridentine" means "before the Council of Trent," of
1545 to 1563 CE).
The authors note that unmarried couples who live together can be divided into
two groups, which they describe as "non-nuptial cohabiters" and "nuptial
cohabiters:"
 | Non-nuptial cohabiters: Couples who have no firm expectations of
marrying in the future. |
 | Nuptial cohabiters: Engaged couples who have definite plans to
marry in the future. They view living together as a step on the road to
marriage; they look and act like married couples in many ways. They are
committed both to each other and the relationship. |
They suggest:
"Given the current research that demonstrates that not all cohabitors are
alike, we propose the re-introduction of an ancient ritual of betrothal for
nuptial cohabitors, followed by intensive marriage preparation in the
Catholic pastoral tradition. ...
"Our pastoral proposal is straightforward: a return to the marital
sequence of betrothal (with appropriate ritual to ensure community
involvement), sexual intercourse, possible fertility, then ritual wedding to
acknowledge and mark the consummation of both valid marriage and sacrament."
"Since these couples will have already initiated their marriage through
betrothal, their intercourse would not be premarital but marital, as it was
in the pre-Tridentine Catholic Church. We envision a marital process
initiated by mutual commitment and consent lived in love, justice, equality,
intimacy, and fulfillment in a nuptial cohabitation pointed to a wedding
that consummates the process of becoming married in a public manner. Such a
process would meet the legitimate Catholic and social requirement that the
sexual act must take place only within a stable relationship."
1
According to the Catholic News Agency:
"In the article, Lawler and Risch proposed a 'modern-day betrothal'
situation which they claim reflects Catholic tradition. They noted that in
the 13th and 14th centuries couples were often first betrothed — a mutual
consent to spend the rest of their lives together — before they were
actually married.
" 'The first sexual intercourse between the spouses usually followed the
betrothal — a fact of the Catholic tradition that has been obscured by the
now-taken-for-granted sequence of wedding, marriage, sexual intercourse,'
Lawler and Risch wrote."
" 'Such a process would meet the legitimate Catholic and social
requirement that the sex act must take place only within a stable
relationship,' they wrote." 9
One conflict that the authors did not touch upon is
the problem of birth control. Many would consider it immoral for a betrothed
couple, for whom a married relationship is still in the future, to start a
pregnancy. So most couples would wish to use a reliable birth control method.
Yet the Catholic Church teaches that the use of any artificial methods of birth
control are a very grievous sin. There does not seem to be any simple solution
to this problem, other than that taken by the vast majority of married Catholic
couples: to ignore the instructions of the hierarchy.

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Reactions of non-Catholic faith groups:
 | Anglican: The Liturgical Commission of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and
Polynesia has created a Liturgy for the Blessing of a Relationship. It's preface
states: |
Most liturgies celebrate relationships with God and with one another. The
liturgy for marriage expresses and celebrates a permanent legal and
spiritual relationship between a ''Man and a woman.' This experimental
liturgy is designed to enable two people to express and celebrate a special
relationship before God and their friends and family. The relationship is
defined by the couple in the course of the liturgy, after which we ask God's
blessing and the community's recognition and support of this relationship.
5
 | Wiccan and some other Neopagan traditions:
Many Wiccans recognize their
relationships with a ritual of handfasting. This can take the form of a
regular marriage that is registered with the state or province. It can be a
temporary, although renewable bond, lasting a year and a day. "There
are probably as many rituals for this as there are people who have joined
themselves together." 8 |
 | Liberal religious groups: Many have
non-marital union services by which the denomination recognizes the loving
committed relationship of a same-sex couple. Some faith groups may make this
ritual available to opposite-sex committed couples as well. |

The Catholic Church's reaction:
Archbishop Elden F. Curtiss of Omaha denounced the suggestion as contrary to
Catholic doctrine. He also said that neither of the articles' authors is a
reliable theologian. He wrote that:
"Couples who live together without marriage do in fact live in sin
objectively. ... Because the position of the authors is contrary to church
teaching about the intrinsic evil of fornication, I have disassociated the
Omaha Archdiocese from the Center for Marriage and Family at
Creighton University." 9
The Catholic News Agency commented:
"The separation of the Omaha Archdiocese and the Center for
Marriage and Family is a particularly sharp one because the archdiocese
is considered a national leader in premarital counseling. FOCCUS, a marriage
preparation inventory developed by the archdiocese's Family Life Office,
is widely used by Catholics and Protestants."
9
The Archbishop's strong negative reaction may have
been influenced by a new program launched on 2007-JUN-27 by U.S. bishops to
promote healthy, marriages. The program, which is restricted to
opposite-sex relationships, started later in the same month that the betrothal
article was published. 10

References used:
- Michael G. Lawler & Gail S. Risch, "A betrothal proposal," U.S. Catholic
magazine, 2007-JUN, at:
http://uscatholic.claretians.org/
- Harold S. Martin, "On living together before marriage," Brethren Revival
Fellowship, 1995-SEP/OCT, Volume 30, #5, at:
http://www.brfwitness.org/
- "Marriage Preparation," Family Life Office, Archdiocese of Cincinnati,
at:
http://www.catholiccincinnati.org/
- "Marriage," Roman Catholic Parish of St. Joseph, Diocese of Gaylord, MI,
undated, at:
http://www.stjosephwestbranch.org/
- "Liturgy for the Blessing of a Relationship," Anglican Church in
Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, 1992-MAR, at:
http://liturgy.co.nz/ This is a PDF file. You may require software to read it. Software can be obtained free from:

- Larry Bumpass & Hsien-Hen Lu, "More
than 50% of first marriages are preceded by cohabitation," Trends in
Cohabitation and Implication for Children’s Family Context, Unpublished
manuscript, Center for Demography, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, WI, (1998).
- Abigail Kelly, "Can this marriage ceremony be saved?," U.S. Catholic
magazine, 2001-NOV-19, at:
http://www.marriagepreparation.com/
- Reverend Helen J. Carol Thompsonm "The History of Handfasting,"
Handfasting Info, at:
http://www.handfasting.info/
- "Archbishop severs ties with Creighton University marriage center over
immoral proposal," Catholic News Agency, 2007-JUN-29, at:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/
- "US Bishops launch media campaign to strengthen marriage," Catholic News
Agency, 2007-JUN-29, at:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/

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Copyright © 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Originally written: 2007-JUL-21
Latest update: 2007-JUL-21
Author: B.A. Robinson

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