Marriage—Rites, Analogues, Meanings

This chapter compares the legal point of view of marriage to other forms of contractual and affective relationships current in late medieval and early modern Europe, such as affrèrement or adoptive brotherhood. It explains that affrèrements involved relationships among several men that are similar to marriage, even if these men have wives and children. It also mentions John Boswell, who described Eastern Orthodox liturgies of adelphopoiesis as a form of same-sex union that involved a sexual relationship. The chapter analyzes evidence of the existence of similar ceremonies as affrèrements in the West, namely an ordo ad fratres faciendum that is attested in fourteenth-century Dalmatia. It refers to Iberians in Rome that were described by Michel de Montaigne, who were involved in performing a brotherhood ceremony.