Has "giving away the bride" ever been part of the Catholic wedding liturgy?

[EnglishTeacher]

I ask because the question “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” is part of both the traditional Anglican and Lutheran wedding service, and their liturgies in general were modeled closely upon the Catholic liturgies. Of course, I understand that nowadays, no one “gives away the bride” in a Catholic wedding, because the bride and groom give themselves to each other, and the appearance of less than full consent could call into question the validity of the sacrament.

But is it possible that a few centuries ago, full consent and freedom were not required for Catholic marriage as they are today? In medieval and Renaissance-era Catholic Europe, it was common for monarchs to enter into marriage treaties with other countries, in which they would agree (for example) that the 5-year-old princess of Country X would marry the 7-year-old prince of Country Y when both parties came of age.

Is it a relatively recent development in canon law or in the understanding of Catholic marriage that the bride and groom must give themselves to each other completely of their own free will?

 

[1ke]

No.

Both “giving away” the bride and the phrase “love, honor, and obey” are Church of England in origin, not Catholic.

You will not find them in the Catholic liturgy, not now and not historically.

 

[1ke]

But is it possible that a few centuries ago, full consent and freedom were not required for Catholic marriage as they are today?

Is it a relatively recent development in canon law or in the understanding of Catholic marriage that the bride and groom must give themselves to each other completely of their own free will?

No and no.

In fact the Lateran Council addresses mutual consent as does the Council of Trent. Lateran was in 1215, so definitely not something new or innovative on the Catholic front.

Trent repudiates clandestine marriages and also the idea that the father’s consent is required for a valid marriage. It is made quite clear that it is the contracting parties’ consent that is required.

Also, regarding betrothals of nobility-- those contracts were not marriages. They were promises of marriage. The man and woman involved still had to give consent. Coercion would be (and was) grounds for nullity, and the Church discouraged these cradle betrothals.

 

[Mintaka]

The Church has always required consent.

Even when there were under-age marriages or marriages by proxy, those were technically forms of betrothal. There was a large amount of concern that both parties should consent when they met face to face, that consummation should be by mutual consent, and so forth.

Of course, if you had a sleazy priest or bishop at hand, you could manage something evil; but even then, the “spouse” who didn’t consent would have an argument for annulment under canon law.

“Giving away the bride” is one of the forms of betrothal customs that have been integrated into weddings.

For example, in the Sarum Rite used over much of Europe in the Middle Ages, the bride and groom would offer each other betrothal gifts, or symbols of dowry and/or brideprice, before the ceremony. (Early on, this could be in the form of various items of value: knives, gold coins, rings. Wedding rings are related to this “arrhae,” as are the bride and groom’s gifts to each other.) By late in the period, it was pretty much always a symbolic number of coins (I think six?). You can read about this sort of thing being done at Queen Mary I’s wedding to Philip of Spain. (They had a wedding canopy, too. Sarum Rite weddings were very nifty.)

So basically, “giving away the bride” is the last remnant of how the bride used to be brought to church by all her friends and relations, and how her family would often say at the betrothal part of the wedding that they were consenting to her betrothal. (Because they were often part of the dowry and brideprice arrangements, and because getting the whole family on board was essential to marital success, in many cases.)

Dowry and brideprice was part of civil law and arrangements between the families. The Church didn’t mess with it, other than doing a little blessing over the betrothal ceremony and the symbolic presents. (The blessing of the marital bed after the wedding was a much bigger deal in terms of length of prayer.)

The other civil way to arrange things was to have a marriage where the bride didn’t receive any brideprice, the groom didn’t receive any dowry, or in which neither bride nor groom brought dowry or brideprice to the marriage, which was usually done either because of poverty of the groom, lack of family, or because neither family was for it. There was a lot less pageantry if you were going to do the betrothal without anything much, which was why purely and totally symbolic gifts got popular for the poor.

But anyway… the point is that how the bride gets to the ceremony isn’t really something that the Church stuck her nose into. Visigoth Catholics did it a different way from Franks, and Franks did it differently than Romans or Czechs.

The Church’s big concern was that betrothals and marriages be carried out in public, either on the porch of the church or (later) inside church, so that there would be plenty of witnesses later if something unjust occurred.

 

[Brendan]

One thing you also will never see at catholic wedding is the “With this ring I the Wed”. At a catholic wedding, it is the exchange of vows by which the coyote is Wed, not via the exchange of rings.

 

[G_S]

Don’t rule out a priest or deacon tinkering with the rite to please the Protestant family in a mixed marriage by including non-Catholic elements in a wedding. I know of a priest who officiated at a wedding at home plate at the local minor league baseball team.

 

[Phemie]

One thing you also will never see at catholic wedding is the “With this ring I the Wed”. At a catholic wedding, it is the exchange of vows by which the coyote is Wed, not via the exchange of rings.

What about the road runner? Same rule apply?