the family in the Post-Imperialist West

296 Pages·2013·2.03 MB·English

by  Emma Southon

Marriage, Sex and Death:
The Family in the Post-Imperial west

By

Emma Southon

A thesis submitted to
The University of Birmingham
For the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

The Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity
College of Arts and Law
The University of Birmingham
October 2012

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Abstract

This thesis presents a cultural history of families and family roles in the post-Imperial west,
here defined as AD 400-700. This thesis questions the ‘tri-partite’ influences of Roman
heritage, ‘Germanic’ culture and Christianisation in the post-Imperial west, and identifies the
prime driver of change in the construction of families as the development and implementation
of Christian thought. This thesis is in two parts. The first considers families in the legal
context of the post-Imperial law codes, and provides a systematic overview of the laws using
the Theodosian and Justinian codes as a point of comparison. This section concludes that the
post-Imperial codes are Roman in nature and that much of the legislation which concerns the
family is very similar to the late Roman law of the Theodosian Code. This section considers
legal stipulations concerning betrothal, marriage, adultery, divorce, widowhood, and
parenthood. Part two considers the issues raised in part one within the literary context of the
post-Imperial west, drawing on a wide geographical and chronological range of genres and
texts to provide a diachronic analysis. This section considers many of the same concerns
which are raised part one, but highlights different perspectives. In particular, part two argues
that the development of Christian thought concerning families, and the increasing power of
Christian Churches underlies much change that is seen in the literary texts within and
throughout this period. These two sections come together to present a broad analysis of
families and family roles throughout the lifecycle of the traditional families in the post-
Imperial west, highlighting new cultural and religious landscapes as drivers for change rather
than ethnic values.

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Acknowledgements
My first and most sincere thanks must go to Drs Mary Harlow and Chris Callow for
their guidance, they have been infinitely supportive, constructive and patient with my many
foibles, distractions, missed deadlines, questions and incorrect uses of em-dashes. Without
them, this thesis could not have existed.

I also offer my thanks to Dr Ville Vuolanto, Dr Christian Laes, Dr Lisa Alberici, Eve
Davies, Dr Lena Larsson Loven, Prof. Ray Laurence and Dr Christina Possel for the
guidance, input and constructive comments on various ideas, theories and papers I presented
them with.

This research was undertaken with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research
Council and the University of Birmingham Alumni fund, to whom I am extremely grateful.

On a personal note, my deepest thanks go to my parents and step-parents who have
remained so supportive throughout this research. I also thank my dearest biff Phoebe; Liz,
Sarah, Debbi, Laura, Erika, Matt, Cory and all the study room regulars for coffees,
distractions and love; Liam, and all on Twitter for hindering my writing process; Elon and all
the undergraduates whom I have taught over the past 4 years for laughs, ideas and inspiration
and referencing help. Jack provided research assistance through the last stages of this thesis
which was invaluable. Priyesh supported me emotionally and financially for much of the
research stage of this thesis and so deserves more gratitude than I could ever repay.
Finally, I thank and dedicate this thesis to Luke who bullied, loved and pushed me through
the final years of this project and who will never know how much I owe him.

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For Luke, Livia and Boo, Familia Mea

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Contents
Abbreviations and Translations .............................................................................................................. 1
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Terminology and Time Frame ............................................................................................................ 5
Literature Review ................................................................................................................................ 8
Roman-Germanic Dichotomy ......................................................................................................... 9
Childhood and Parents .................................................................................................................. 15
Marriage ........................................................................................................................................ 19
Christian-Non Christian Dichotomy ............................................................................................. 20
Family structure ............................................................................................................................ 23
Sources .......................................................................................................................................... 25
Thesis Overview ............................................................................................................................... 32
Part One: Legal Overview .................................................................................................................... 34
1.1.1 Betrothal and Marriage ................................................................................................................ 34
1.1.1.1 Betrothal in the Liber Constitutionum .............................................................................. 35
1.1.1.2 Betrothal in the Pactus Legis Salicae and the Lex Ribuaria ............................................ 38
1.1.1.3 Betrothal in the Liber Iudiciorum .................................................................................... 42
1.1.1.4 Betrothal in the Lombard Codes ...................................................................................... 46
1.1.1.5 Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 50
1.1.2 Betrothal, Sex and Consent .......................................................................................................... 54
1.1.3 Marriage, Law and Property ........................................................................................................ 57
1.2 Death and Divorce .......................................................................................................................... 69
1.2.1 Adultery ................................................................................................................................... 69
1.2.2 Divorce ..................................................................................................................................... 75
1.2.3 Childless Widowhood and Property ........................................................................................ 79
1.2.4 Conclusions .............................................................................................................................. 83
1.3 Parenthood ...................................................................................................................................... 84
1.3.1 Fathers, Children and Patrimony ............................................................................................. 84
1.3.2. Mothers and their Property ..................................................................................................... 92
1.3.3 Abortion, Infanticide, Child Abandonment ............................................................................. 97
1.4 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 105
Part Two: Literary context .................................................................................................................. 108
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 108
2.1. Betrothal: Introduction ................................................................................................................. 108
2.1.1 Betrothal and Sex ................................................................................................................... 110
2.1.2 Betrothal and consent ............................................................................................................. 112
2.1.2 Betrothal and Desire .............................................................................................................. 126
2.1.3 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 132
2.2. Marriage ....................................................................................................................................... 133
2.2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 133
2.2.2 Property in Literature ............................................................................................................. 134
2.2.3 Christianity, Sex & Power ..................................................................................................... 139
2.2.4 Christian Marriage & Male Authority ................................................................................... 152
2.2.5 Marriage and Concordia......................................................................................................... 161
2.2.6 Divorce in Literature .............................................................................................................. 169
2.2.7 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 175
2.3 Parenthood .................................................................................................................................... 177
2.3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 177
2.3.2 Having Children ..................................................................................................................... 178

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2.3.3 Not Having Children: Contraception, Abortion, Abandonment ............................................ 188
2.3.4 The Emotional World of Fathers and Children ...................................................................... 200
2.3.5 Mothers, Children and Nurturing ........................................................................................... 214
2.3.6 Adult Children, Elderly Parents ............................................................................................. 225
2.3.7 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 240
2.4. General Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 242
Appendix 1: Table of Incidence of Laws Concerning Betrothal and Marriage ................................. 248
Appendix 2: Table of Incidence of Laws Concerning Parenting ........................................................ 249
Primary Sources .................................................................................................................................. 251
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................... 257

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Abbreviations and Translations

LC The Burgundian Code, trans. K.F. Drew. [1972, Philadelphia).
Pact. Leg. Laws of the Salian Franks, trans. K.F. Drew (Philadelphia, PA. 1991).
Sal.
Cap. Capitularies in, Laws of the Salian Franks, trans. K.F. Drew (Philadelphia, PA.
1991).
Lib. Iud. Liber Iudicorum, trans. S.P. Scott. (Boston, IL. 1846-1929).
CTh Codex Theodosianus, trans. C. Pharr, T.S. Davison & M. Brown Pharr. [Corpus
juris romani 1], (Princeton, NJ, 1952).
LR Laws of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks, trans. J. Rivers. (New York, NY.
1986).
Edit. Roth. Edictum Rothari in The Lombard Laws, trans. K. Fischer Drew. [Philadelphia,
PA, 1973).
Liut Edictum Liutprand in The Lombard Laws, trans. K. Fischer Drew. [Philadelphia,
PA, 1973).
Grim Edictum Grimwald in The Lombard Laws, trans. K. Fischer Drew. [Philadelphia,
PA, 1973).
Angers The FormulAriès of Angers and Marculf: Two Merovingian Legal Handbooks,
trans. A. Rio. [TTH 46], (Liverpool, 2008).
Marculf The FormulAriès of Angers and Marculf: Two Merovingian Legal Handbooks,
trans. A. Rio. [TTH 46], (Liverpool, 2008).

All other abbreviations correspond to those found in the Oxford Classical Dictionary and
L’Annee Philologique.

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Introduction

The focus of this thesis is conveniently summarised in a New York Times article from
September 2012. Titled ‘Till Death, or 20 years, Do Us Part: Marriage Through the Contract
Lens’ Matt Richtel highlighted the difficulties facing American marriage and presents the
twenty-first century as a crisis period for the conception of modern marriage. Through a
number of prominent scholars in modern American demographic and family research, Richtel
examined the two contrasting elements of, and the two major players in, modern American
marriage: the economic realities mediated by lawyers and the romantic ideals mediated by
churches.1 The family shape - most notably the centrality of a legal marriage - and the
clashing sides presented in this article are strikingly similar to those presented in the literature
of the period covered by this thesis. The form and function of the family has long been seen
as one of the most useful and significant lenses through which to view any given culture, and
the family has frequently been viewed as an important site of cultural change and evolution.
This is as true of the period AD 400-700 in western Europe as it is for American in the
twenty-first century; it is a period of considerable cultural and political change where the
family is the locus for changing discourses and apparent behaviours. As the traditional power
structures of the Roman political world declined during this period, and the Christian Church
rose to fill that power vacuum, the family became a vitally important locus for cultural
struggles concerning morality, law and tradition.

The primary focus of this thesis is to examine and question how far the understanding
of the family unit changed during these centuries and to consider how these tripartite
influences of Roman heritage, alleged ‘Germanic’ custom and emerging Christian traditions
and discourses intersect in terms of defining and describing the family, family roles and
family relationships. It aims to combine two successful methodological and analytical
approaches to produce a more comprehensive synthesis of family discourses and behaviours.

1 Richtel, 2012

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While accepting the current consensus regarding the general structure of the post-Imperial
family as a nuclear unit (see below), this thesis emphasises the notion of change in the
presentation and discussion of the family throughout this period, and aims to identify and as
far as possible explain these changes. This thesis questions a number of the assumptions that
are found in the two primary strands of scholarship concerning the post-Imperial family and
attempts to tie these strands together. These two strands can broadly be seen as being typified
by those who have attempted to identify a Roman/Germanic dichotomy, and those who have
examined a Christian/non-Christian dichotomy. Thus, this thesis poses two central questions
about the family in the post-Imperial west. First, it questions how far the Roman/Germanic
dichotomy is realistically found within the legal and literary sources, once the Merovingian
family is removed from the analysis; secondly it asks how far the Christian/Non-Christian
dichotomy is evident. Finally, this thesis asks whether these are useful categories of analysis
for the post-Imperial family as a lived experience, or whether new ones are needed.

The family of the late antique west has been the focus of a number of studies
examining the effects that encroaching Christian cultural hegemony and the ‘barbarian
hordes’ had on the structure and expression of the family. Equally there has been a great deal
of scholarship concerning the early medieval family, locating the beginning of the early
medieval period around AD 800 and the positioning of the ‘dark ages’ of the post-Roman,
pre-Carolingian centuries as a defining moment in the creation of a European family.
Although these studies often consider the same time periods and even the same geographical
locations, they tend to present drastically different versions of the family. The former
concentrates entirely on Roman elites and the perceived decline of Roman cultural values and
the rise of Christianity in the west, thus looking forward from the high Roman Imperial
period and emphasising concepts of ‘fall’ and ‘decline,’2 while the latter looks backwards
from the high medieval period, and tends to be interested primarily in the new ‘Germanic
barbarian’ cultures, viewed primarily through their law codes, and on the developing feudal

2 For example Kate Cooper, The Fall of the Roman Household (2009) or Geoffrey Nathan The Family in Late
antiquity (2000).

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