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from Part V - Political and Social Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 June 2019
Marriage in Chaucer’s time – how it was defined, created, and who could get married – was significantly different from what it is today. Chaucer clearly knew the canon law of marriage, promulgated through preaching and enforced via the church courts. It was incredibly easy to get married (even, perhaps, unintentionally), through words or deeds, such as exchanging rings like Troilus and Criseyde, or having sex while engaged. However, divorce, in the modern sense of voluntarily ending a valid marriage, did not exist. Joan of Kent’s marriage history illustrates how a clandestine marriage, although strictly prohibited, would still be held up in court and could overturn a subsequent, properly publicised, marriage. Second marriages, to the dismay of the Wife of Bath, were regarded as lesser, as their religious symbolism was flawed. The Church wanted exogamy (marrying outside the wider kinship group) but the main concern for many people was maintaining and increasing their social status.
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