How Did Arranged Marriages Influence Medieval European Culture

Arranged Marriages Influence on the Rich Culture in Europe in the Middle Ages

The multitude of people wish to have supportiveness, loyalty, humor, and other characteristics in their relationships. “As it does today, the institution of marriage was a vital foundation for the society of medieval Europe” (Streissguth 1). Medieval Europe was a demented time period of which European culture needed many key foundations for its survival, marriage being one of them. In the Middle Ages and today in 2023, marriage is an essential part of human existence. The mere motivation behind marriage was to connect two people in a bond, in which both parties could receive beneficial commodities; including alliances, power and money for royal hierarchies and workers

Jeremiah Hacket, the founding president of Roger Bacon Research Society, wrote an outline of the process of marriage and family life during the end of the Middle Ages. He found the church helped make a switch from arranged to consent marriages, this would prove to be difficult for people of higher class as most marriages were for lesser reasons. Hacket explains this idea better as he writes, “One profound change during this process, which affected all aspects of society, was the assertion of the rights of the individual as expressed in necessity for “consent” by the parties entering into marriage. In the course of establishing this fundamental norm, the Church found itself in a great struggle with the landed aristocracy, who used arranged marriage and family ties to build alliances and extend power” (Hacket 1) Social obligations of the royal line had a hold on the view marriage since, they would marry their daughters and sons to other powers they wanted alliances with and create a new heir to one’s throne. Once the church brought back the idea of consent marriage, where you could still be arranged but not forced, the idea of arranged marriages slowly died out. Of course, it was a struggle to adapt to this new idea though, yet the change did take place. Arranged marriages and social obligations had history-changing ties together as many Kings and Queens may have once been or were in an arranged marriage. The reason was awfully simple as to why this happened, many kingdoms needed more power, alliances, money, and a new