18世纪英国婚姻

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１８世纪英国还没有关于离婚的成文法，国家法认可两种合法的离婚方式：教会法院司法分居和国会独立法案离婚，然而这两种离婚方式程序繁杂、费用昂贵，不过是特权阶层的又一特权，对绝大多数人来说，合法离婚遥不可及。

司法分居（Ａ Ｍｅｎｓａ Ｅｔ Ｔｈｏｒｏ）

１８世纪的英国，垄断婚姻事务的教会法院在离婚方面仍然奉行不可解除原则。“教会的不可解除原则是其婚姻思想不同于所有其他婚姻法的最明显的一个特征

尽管天主教会在诸多婚姻问题上存在着模棱两可性，以至于使它有充足的可能性与世俗社会妥协与调和，但在婚姻的不可解除问题上，虽然也有一时的倒退、偶尔的摇摆和对条件的争论，却从未向世俗社会松口，即提出合法的婚姻可以被解除。”〔1〕然而，不准离婚并不能阻止婚姻的破裂。“不离婚固为理想，但是一旦婚姻发生破绽时，禁止离婚亦无法解除婚姻之破绽。人死亡，有死亡证书，婚姻生活共同体破灭时，亦应发给婚姻死亡证书。不发死亡证书亦无法降低死亡率，同理，禁止离婚亦无法减少婚姻破绽的产生。”〔２〕因此，虽然法律上不准许离婚，但婚姻破裂的现象普遍存在。为此，教会不得不采取妥协的办法，在特殊情况下，对有效成立的婚姻，教会法院可以判决双方司法分居，即不完全离婚，夫妻分居分食但不解除婚姻关系，更不得再婚。

司法分居判决会解除夫妻双方的同居义务，双方分居分食，但并不解除婚姻关系，双方仍然互守贞操义务，和第三方发生性关系，就构成通奸。如果是妻子提起诉讼并取胜的话，那么丈夫要负担妻子终身的抚养，给予她抚养费。“因为丈夫因结婚而对妻子的财产和收入自动享有控制权，且该控制权不受分居的影响，所以分居后丈夫要继续对妻子承担抚养义务。因为当时对分居的妻子来说，几乎没有就业机会，所以得到生活费就成为妻子的惟一生存手段。”〔４〕因此，为使妻子在离开后仍能维持生计，法律允许妻子从丈夫处获得生活费，从本质上说，“生活费只不过是丈夫的婚姻义务在分居之后的延续。”〔５〕如果丈夫因为妻子的通奸而在诉讼中取胜的话，丈夫就不用向妻子支付抚养费。 国会私人法案离婚（Ｐａｒｌｉａｍｅｎｔａｒｙ Ｄｉｖｏｒｃｅ）

１８世纪唯一一种完全离婚的途径就是获得国会私人离婚法案，这种离婚被称为国会私人法案离婚。这是一种通过国会立法程序实现完全离婚的特殊方式。夫妻之间的关系彻底解除，并可再婚。但这并不意味着离婚的障碍已经终结，只不过是通过议会私人法案绕过了这些障碍。这同样也不是说有权离婚的原则已经得到确立，而是表明假如哪个人下定决心要摆脱自己的婚姻，那他就会找到一个自行其是的办法。

在18世纪，虽然开始提倡爱情婚姻观，但人们的思想还是深受传统包办婚姻的影响。这一时期，制约英国贵族的婚姻生活的因素包括父母包办、经济利益、门第观念、国王的干预、宗教和社交范围等。贵族之间的通婚有助于保持贵族阶层的相对稳定性，使男方获得可靠的嫁妆，有助于贵族扩大和加强社会联系及获得政治支持。 贵族婚姻中充斥着对金钱财富的渴望。在贵族的婚姻中，总是能够体现出家庭利益在贵族生活中的重要地位。劳伦.斯通对贵族的婚姻问题曾有精确论述：“从本质上说，人们认为婚姻不是为了满足心理和生理需要的个人结合，而是确保家族的延续和家产的制度性手段。”这是对中世纪以来英国贵族婚姻特点的本质性概括：贵族婚姻就是利益婚姻。贵族父母希望通过与其他贵族家庭的联姻（最好爵位比自己的高，财产比自己的家庭多），从而使本家族的利益得到保障和积累。因而包办婚姻对家庭而言往往意味着财产的积累和地位的抬升，而对个人而言则是一种牺牲。

包办婚姻实际是贵族家长依据子女婚姻是否有利于整个家族而做出的抉择。这是从中世纪沿袭下来的观念。到了18世纪，虽然包办婚姻被认为是不规范的，但贵族却仍然保留着这一种传统，这与贵族的家庭利益是分不开的。在贵族家庭内部，儿子可获得一份地产，而女儿则可以从父母那里得到一份嫁妆。如不服从父母的安排，他们很可能就得不到这些地产或嫁妆，或者得到的要少一些。因此为了未来的生计，他们对于父母安排自己婚姻的做法只能表示遵从。包办婚姻所产生的夫妻双方感情往往不确定，有些能在婚后产生真正的感情，但有些夫妻却始终无法产生感情的交融。但是为了家族的经济利益和政治利益，他们的婚姻关系


还得勉强维持下去。

总之，18世纪英国贵族的婚姻还是深受经济利益和政治利益的驱使。一方面，地产和金钱超过个人的情感成为贵族选择婚配对象的重要因素；另一方面，贵族借助婚姻的力量，建立政治联盟，提升家庭地位。

Background of marriage in the 18th century Britain

In the 18th century Britain, although the concept of love marriage was suggested, the traditional arranged marriage was still rooted in people’s mind. In this period, the factors influenced aristocratic marriage life were arranged marriage, economic benefits, political benefits, influence of the monarch, religion, social activities and others. The most important factors were economic benefits and political benefits. Arranged marriage between two aristocracies contributes to the stability of the aristocratic class. Husband’s side was able to get a great deal of trousseau, benefits of expanding and strengthening social interpersonal relationship and support of politics. Family interests always could be found in marriage of aristocracy. It took an important part of their marriage.

Desire of money and wealth was a cloud had been handing over their marriage. Laurent` stone once have a precise treatise on aristocratic marriage, “In essence, people consider marriage was nor for the need of psychological satisfaction and biological satisfaction, but for the insurance of family honor and family property.” This was an entitative conclusion of British aristocratic marriage from the Middle Ages. Marriage of aristocracy was marriage of interests. Parents of aristocracy wished that they can get more interests and property accumulation through alliance with other noble family who has a higher title and more property. So, arranged marriage means accumulation of property and promotion of social status.

In fact, arranged marriage was a decision made by parents on the basis of whether it is benefit to the whole family. This was a custom from the Middle Ages. Till 18th century, arranged marriage was considered nonstandard, but it still took the dominating position on the aristocratic marriage, this couldn’t be cut of with the family interests. In the aristocratic family, a son can get a estate, a daughter can get a trousseau. If they were not obeyed the arrangement of their parents, they wouldn’t get that or get only a little of that. For their livelihood, they seldom made any resistance to their parents, or they could not.

Arranged marriage made an unsure on the emotion between the man and wife. Some couples can live a harmonious life but most of them couldn’t. But for the sake of economic and political interests of the family, their marriage was maintained constrainedly, because they couldn’t get a divorce. In the 18th century Britain, there’s still no written law about divorce. Although there’s way of divorcing, but it’s process was complicated and costly. At that time, Catholic Church was in the main position of Britain’s religion, divorce was forbidden by them. Even though they finally got divorce, and the wife won in the case, she could only get the maintenance from her husband. But such thongs rarely happened especially in aristocracy class for their interests’ sake.

In brief, aristocratic arranged marriage in the 18th century Britain was deeply influenced by economic and political interests. On the one side, estate and wealth


were more important than personal emotions when choosing a married object; on the other side, by alliance, aristocracy established and strengthened the political union, raised family status.

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