The Institution of Christian Matrimony

A long treatise on marriage as friendship, written for Catherine of Aragon a year before Henry VIII set out to end his marriage to her.

by Desiderius Erasmus421 passages held

Latin, the original language

Original title: Christiani matrimonii institutio
First published: 1526(aged 60)
Original language: Latin

Report a rights issue

Overview

Lord Mountjoy, chamberlain to Queen Catherine in England, had asked Erasmus for a book on Christian marriage, and more than two years went by before Erasmus delivered it. The dedication to Catherine of Aragon apologises for the delay, blaming business, troubles and illness. Froben printed the book in Basel in 1526. It is by far the longest thing Erasmus wrote about marriage, and it takes the subject whole: marriage as a sacrament and as a contract, the Church's rules on consent and on the impediments that make a marriage void, the choice of a partner, the life of husband and wife together and the upbringing of daughters as well as sons. Christians, Erasmus complains, give marriage less careful thought than the ancient Jews and pagans did, whose laws on betrothal, divorce, adultery and the duties of parents and children were many. At the centre of the book is marriage as friendship, and more than friendship. Pythagoras defined friendship as one soul, Erasmus notes; in marriage two people become one body as well, and the union of minds is the chief part of it. The model for a husband is not any famous loving spouse of antiquity but Paul's command to love one's wife as Christ loved the Church. Conservative theologians objected in particular to what he wrote about divorce. Within a year Henry VIII began trying to have his marriage to Catherine annulled, and the queen to whom Erasmus had dedicated his picture of Christian marriage spent the rest of her life defending her own. The University of Toronto Press published it in English in 1999, in volume 69 of its Collected Works of Erasmus.

Key concepts

Why does Erasmus call marriage more than friendship?

Because friendship, as Pythagoras defined it, is one soul in two people, while marriage joins two people in one body as well. Erasmus does not let the bodily side take over, though: the chief part of marriage is the union of minds, and a couple whose bodies are joined while their minds are at odds has the shell of a marriage without its substance.

What role does consent play in the Institution of Christian Matrimony?

Consent is what makes a marriage: the free agreement of both partners. A union obtained by force, threats or deception fails that test, and Erasmus calls a marriage used to trap a simple person a snare rather than a marriage, since marriage was instituted so that each partner is joined to the other for that partner's good, not so that innocence can be cheated.

What is an impediment to marriage?

An impediment is a circumstance that forbids a marriage or makes it void. Erasmus works through the Church's list: a general prohibition such as the ban on secret marriages, a specific prohibition, close kinship by blood or by marriage, a prior religious vow, force. Where the bar is permanent, he notes, the separation is permanent too. Knowing them matters because a couple could live for years in a marriage that the law did not recognise.

Why does Erasmus say Christians neglect marriage?

Because pagans and Jews took it more seriously. The pagans, though worshippers of false gods, celebrated weddings with oaths, prayers and rites and believed a god watched over marriage vows; the Jews had many laws on betrothal, divorce, adultery and the duties between parents and children. Christians, with marriage counted a sacrament, give it less careful thought, and Erasmus writes the book to repair that.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

One Soul and One Body

What turns two people living under one roof into a marriage? Erasmus places the answer in the joining of minds, without which the joining of bodies is only cohabitation.

Pythagoras called friendship one soul; marriage, Erasmus adds, makes one body as well, yet the union of minds remains its chief part. So the choice of a partner should look past a beautiful face, which fades and often hides an ugly mind, to the form of the soul. The husband's model is not a famous lover of antiquity but Paul's command to love a wife as Christ loved the Church. Household life, down to the spindle that keeps idleness away, serves that friendship.

marriage
love
charity
communication
sexual ethics
modesty
virtue
religion

Enter a dialogue

Consent, Law and the Household

Who decides whether a marriage exists, and on what terms? The longest of Erasmus's writings on marriage works through consent, impediments and the claims of parents with a lawyer's patience.

The pagans surrounded weddings with oaths, rites and a god of marriage, and the Jews with laws on betrothal, divorce and the duties of parents and children; Christians, Erasmus complains, give marriage less thought. He insists that consent makes the bond, so a match obtained by force or fraud is a trap rather than a marriage. He sets out the impediments that void a union, from Church prohibitions such as that on secret marriages to kinship, weighs how far parents may decide, and ends on bringing up daughters as carefully as sons.

consent
marriage law
canon law
parental authority
coercion
kinship
religious vows
family
education

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 421
distinct concepts: 527
by passages held, corpus-wide: #177

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “consent” and “marriage”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 17 pairings. 92 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
consent	marriage	30
marriage	virtue	30
gender roles	marriage	21
marriage	religion	20
marriage	modesty	16
education	marriage	12
education	virtue	12
consent	marriage law	8
modesty	religion	4
religion	virtue	4
education	religion	3
gender roles	modesty	3
gender roles	virtue	3
modesty	virtue	3
education	gender roles	2
education	modesty	1
gender roles	religion	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1500 Adages (Adagia)
The work that first made Erasmus famous and the one he revised for longest, from 1500 until the year he died; Erasmus Against War began as one of its entries.
LA
1503 The Manual of the Christian Knight (Enchiridion militis Christiani)
The earnest twin of In Praise of Folly: when critics attacked the satire, Erasmus answered that it treats the same subject as this manual, only in a playful spirit.
EN
1504 Panegyric for Archduke Philip of Austria (Panegyricus ad Philippum Austriae ducem)
Erasmus's advice to a ruler, delivered as a speech of welcome; The Complaint of Peace and the essay on war later make its case for peace without the obligatory flattery.
LA
1511 In Praise of Folly (Moriae encomium)
A mock oration in Folly's own voice and Erasmus's most famous book; The Tongue of 1525 has been read as an attempt at a companion piece.
LAEN
1511 On the Method of Study (De ratione studii)
Part of the same English years' work as De copia, with which it was later printed; Erasmus's later The Education of Children moves the same programme back to infancy.
LA
1515 Erasmus Against War (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
The fullest essay on war in the Adages and the core of Erasmus's writings for peace; The Complaint of Peace restates its case two years later in Peace's own voice.
EN
1516 The Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis christiani)
Erasmus's one full treatise on government, in the old genre of advice books for rulers; The Complaint of Peace followed a year later.
LA
1517 The Complaint of Peace (Querela pacis)
A declamation in the voice of Peace, the device of In Praise of Folly turned to a serious purpose, and the most direct of Erasmus's several writings against war.
LAEN
1518 Familiar Colloquies (Colloquia familiaria)
The book that carried Erasmus's views on fasting, pilgrimage and monks to far more readers than his devotional treatises ever reached.
LAEN
1518 In Praise of Marriage (De laude matrimonii)
A schoolroom piece that turned into a controversy: the first of three works on marriage, followed by The Institution of Christian Matrimony in 1526 and On the Christian Widow in 1529.
LA
1520 The Antibarbarians (Antibarbari)
The first statement of the cause Erasmus served all his life, classical learning as the ally of Christian faith, written before any of the books that made his name.
LA
1521 On Disdaining the World (De contemptu mundi)
The counterweight to everything Erasmus later wrote about monks, from The Manual of the Christian Knight to the Familiar Colloquies, and probably the earliest of his surviving prose works.
LA
1524 On Praying to God (Modus orandi Deum)
Pastoral rather than polemical, though written in the same year as On Free Will, his challenge to Luther; the first of the late handbooks on Christian practice that end with An Explanation of the Apostles' Creed.
LA
1525 The Tongue (Lingua)
Erasmus's fullest treatment of a theme that runs through all his writing, speech as the mirror of the soul, written in Basel in the middle of the polemics of the 1520s.
LA
1526 The Institution of Christian Matrimony (Christiani matrimonii institutio) you are here LA
1528 The Ciceronian (Dialogus cui titulus Ciceronianus)
Satire aimed at fellow humanists rather than at theologians, unusual in Erasmus's later years; it first appeared in one volume with his dialogue on the pronunciation of Latin and Greek.
LA
1529 On the Christian Widow (Vidua christiana)
The last of Erasmus's writings on women's lives, after In Praise of Marriage and The Institution of Christian Matrimony, and like the second of those dedicated to a queen.
LA
1529 The Education of Children (De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis)
Dedicated to a prince's heir, like The Education of a Christian Prince, but concerned with every child's first years rather than with government; the most personal of Erasmus's books on schooling.
LAEN
1533 An Explanation of the Apostles' Creed (Explanatio symboli)
Erasmus's catechism, written for lay readers rather than theologians three years before his death.
LA

— or open another of their works