Unsurprisingly, same-sex marriage is never written about in legal texts or mythology. The most probable explanation is that it was a cultural 'given' that same sex marriage was unacceptable. It is not unlikely that Christian Monks simply censored it from the texts we have now, in which case we could potentially find hints about it remaining in some mythological stories. The most interesting explanation posits that marriage and romance were separate to some degree, so that there could have been same-sex romance but there was never a need to marry, as marriage was external to the relationship. I will explore the role of marriage in Early Irish society in this post - but keep posted, because the next post will be about same-sex relationships and transgender themes in Irish and general Celtic mythology and society.
The Cain Lanamna dates to around 700AD. It reads a little like a notebook composed of disjointed notes that need more context to actually make sense. Nonetheless, it gives a lot of very useful information about Early Irish customs. It states the following about the nature of marriage:
"Question: how many couples of cohabitation and procreation are there in Irish law? Answer: ten-(1) union of common contribution; (2) union of a woman on a man's contribution; (3) union of a man on a woman's contribution with service; (4) union of a woman who accepts a man's solicitation; (5) union of a man who visits the woman, without work, without solicitation, without provision, without material contribution; (6) union by abduction; (7) union of wandering mercenaries; (8) union by criminal seduction; (9) union by rape; (10) union of mockery."
- Cain Lanamna, Section 4 (Translated by Donnchadh Ó Corráin)
First, marriage is referred to as a "couple of cohabitation and procreation." This is in-line with the Christian values of the time that pervaded most of Europe's different cultures. Marriage and love were separate: marriage was for procreation, the household economy, social stability, and external perception, whereas strictly love-based relationships were advised against.
This contrasts with the overt presence of polygyny throughout the text. The term cetmuinter is used many times throughout the text. The meaning of this term is debated: some think it means "first wife," as in the wife which possessed the most power or wealth out of all of the man's wives, while other believe it means "head of the household." Whichever interpretation is correct, it was observed by Roman writers that men could in fact marry multiple women.
We see the household economy already brought up in the first five points. Of note is the difference from point 2 to point 3, where the union can happen on a man's contribution, but if it happens on the woman's contribution, she must also provide service. This contrasts with how - apart from the laws about abduction and rape - equal men and women were in marriage, at least in nobility. Unlike in the rest of Europe, a woman could choose to divorce her husband. In doing so, she kept all the property which she had owned before the marriage, all the property which her husband had given her, and a portion of the wealth (here it is "raw materials") according to her "industry," or the lucrativeness of her profession.
When the woman is of lesser social status than the man, then she cannot refuse to marry a man if he offers any contribution that is not "clothing and food; and [...] cattle and sheep." Additionally, a woman who was raped by a man who already had a cetmuinter, she would only be entitled to half of her eraic (the price one had to pay the person/clan/family in the case of murder or rape), as opposed to the entire eraic that cetmuinter were entitled to. Any woman below the status of cetmuinter was also exempt from many of the laws that made divorce fair. They were not entitled to what their husband had contributed for their marriage ("bridewealth"/dowry).
The term "union by rape" is very vague, and it is not clear whether a woman was forced into a marriage if she was raped, or if it is referring to adultery in some regard.
Men had the right to hit their wives without consequence, unless it left a mark, in which case the wife would be entitled to the equivalent to her or her husband's bridewealth, and could also divorce him. Obviously I cannot say it is 'progressive' for men to have the right to hit their wives, but most of Europe did not have this punishment in place for substantial physical abuse at this time.
It seems that as in many other cultures, the law existed in part for social stability. First, any ill behavior from one spouse targeted at the other was punished. "Everything taken by stealth, by force, by secret removal, without consent, without recompense, without asking pardon, is levied with its penalty fine." Any destabilizing behavior or "bad faith" on behalf of any one spouse is condemned throughout the text. Additionally, the last Section sheds the most light on this. It states that in a "Union of Mockery," "The person who brings them (a "lunatic or madman" and a "deranged woman or madwoman") together for fun and the responsible person in whose presence this takes place, theirs is the offspring, if offspring there be; its rearing, compensation for its offences, and its suretyship falls on both of them." First of all, is this really common in Early Irish society? Or what event did those involved with writing this text witness or hear about before writing this? But most important to the topic is the emphasis on the "sane" one raising the child and being responsible for their misdemeanors. We can infer that this law was for the wellbeing of the child, since they would be raised by a parent that was seen as more competent, even though that parent had "[brought the 'madmen' together]," which may imply a lot about the parent's competence to raise a child. But we can also infer that this law was also in place to prevent the havoc that child may cause if they had been raised by 'madmen.' Due to the brevity of the document, there is no elaboration on the terms 'lunatic,' 'madman,' 'deranged woman,' or 'madwoman.' 'Madness' and mental illness will be the topic of a future post.
The disjointed nature of the text points to its purpose, and hence how we should interpret it. The text is not completely comprehensive in its approach; rather, it provides specific rules for a few eventualities that were thought of by those who wrote this at the time that they wrote it. In no way does this exactly represent Irish society. As Laurence Ginnell writes in "Leges Minores": "It is one of many cases in which the law is more concerned with the few who invoke it than with the many who never invoke it during their lives." The law will only cover the eventualities for which it will be needed, not those that can be settled outside of the law, or those that rarely ever occur.
If you take away anything from this post, it should be that women had a unique role in marriage and society. People like to point out that women had equal rights in divorce, and were even sometimes favored, but this is not true for those of lower economic status than their husbands. Men still had the right to hit their wives, and women could still be forced into marriage without consent. I will be posting more on the role of women in nobility and war in a future post.
References
The text itself (Cain Lanamna): https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T102030/index.html
[This is full of inaccurate information and almost seems ironic. Take a look if you want a laugh] Gibson, Gayle. (2005, March 16). Same-sex Celts: Saint Brigid & her special friend. DailyXtra. https://www.dailyxtra.com/same-sex-celts-2-39898
[This one is also riddled with inaccuracies and fun to read] Histor. (2013, September 9). Polygamy & Divorce in ancient Ireland. Irish History blog on Blogger. https://history-ireland.blogspot.com/2013/09/polygamy-divorce-in-ancient-ireland.html
[This one is fairly useful but beware of some of the information] Ojibwa. (2020, Jul 15). Religion 101: Women and marriage under ancient Irish Brehon law. Daily KOS. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/15/1960496/-Religion-101-Women-and-marriage-under-ancient-Irish-Brehon-law
Ginnell, Laurence. (1894). Leges Minores. Chapter VIII, from Library Ireland. https://libraryireland.com/Brehon-Laws/Marriage.php
Anon. (some professor at UT Austin probably). (2009). Gender and Sex. Iron Age Celts. https://www.laits.utexas.edu/ironagecelts/sex.php
Wikipedia:
'LGBT themes in mythology'
'Eraic'
This is really interesting. Who wrote these rules? And if women had some political power at this point, did they have a hand in its contents?
ReplyDeleteA fascinating take. It's not very often these particular aspects of law are brought to light. Bravo!
ReplyDelete