The conjugal debt and medieval canon law

Marriage in Western European society was the preserve of the Christian Church throughout the later middle ages. The law of the Church played a significant role in the formation of doctrine concerning that institution, including the sexual relationship of spouses. Adopting a debt-model of conjugal relations, the canonists maintained that each partner owed marital coitus to the other. The lawyers emphasized the mutually binding character of this obligation, and consistently dejended the right of spouses to exact their marital due, insisting that this duty could be abrogated only by mutual consent. As heirs to an ascetic patristic tradition, however, the lawyers tended to be suspicious of fleshly pleasure. A peculiar and ambivalent doctrine resulted from this tension between an appreciation of the intrinsic goodness of the married state and a distrust of sex, one of its major constituents.     

Negative Freedom,Catholic Social Doctrine,and the Conciliar Challenge of the Free Society

The idea of “negative freedom” has been at the heart of modern democratic politics; it has also been an idea regarded warily by Catholic social doctrine. To be sure, Catholic social doctrine now embraces the classic negative political freedoms like freedom of religion and freedom of speech. But the hierarchical magisterium of the Church was slow to arrive at such an embrace. And in the last decades the hierarchical magisterium has renewed its skepticism of the idea, seeing it as both important and often misused. This article considers current criticisms of negative freedom by Catholic social doctrine and seeks to respond to such criticisms by appealing to personalist conceptions of freedom in the philosophy of Charles Taylor and in the theology of Walter Kasper. Overall, the aim of the article is to establish a more sure conceptual basis for negative freedom as an essential component of the commitment by the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council to the free society.     

Marriage,Sex, and the Church of Scotland: Exploring Non‐Conformity Amongst the Lower Orders

The history of marriage amongst the Scottish lower orders in the eighteenth century has largely been a story of sexual discipline by the Kirk (Church of Scotland). As much of this history has been produced through kirk session records — the arm of the church that monitored sexual morality and marital conformity — this is often construed as a story of contest between the church and a resistant lower orders, trying to negotiate alternative forms of family life. Using kirk session and secular court records and popular literature, this article explores how religious belief shaped sexual and marital behaviour, particularly non‐conformity, during this period. It examines the Kirk's interpretation of chastity and marriage, how these ideas filtered into popular culture and were used by the lower orders to negotiate their own sexual and marital behaviour and relationship to the Church. It argues that the Kirk's varying attitude to marital and sexual non‐conformity meant that marital non‐conformity was less significant than sexual sin in the popular and religious imagination.     

Holy Weddings,Unholy Marriages: Christian Spouses and Domestic Discords in Early Colonial Lesotho, 1870–1900

In the Lesotho Archives in the capital Maseru, lies unreferenced, scattered files containing testimonies of Christianised BaSotho couples embroiled in marital litigations in the last third of the nineteenth century. Reading these testimonies in relation to one another, and engaging in an in‐depth qualitative examinations of the narratives embedded in the texts offers a rare opportunity to explore the texture of conjugal relationships among Christianised spouses in this period. The compelling picture that emerges is one of extreme instability of Christian marriages. We behold here conjugal lives teeming with conflicts and intrigue. Adultery accusations and spousal violence punctuated the conjugal lives of these spouses in unexpected intensity. This study concludes that after over half a century of missionising the BaSotho, evangelical missionaries seemingly had had little impact on the texture of BaSotho conjugal relations. The rampant “adultery” and spousal abuse that seemingly plagued these Christian spouses were expressions of pre‐Christian patterns that were manifestations of gendered conflicts.     

Early medieval regulations concerning marital sexual relations

During the early middle ages the Christian Church demonstrated an interest in regulating the expression of marital sexual relations. The regulations focused on the form of the sexual behaviour but particularly on its frequency. There is a growing body of regulations forbidding marital intercourse during such times as the major liturgical seasons, on particular days of the week, and before communion, among others. While some of these regulations may have been motivated by the procreative teaching regarding marital relations, others point to a fundamental difficulty of reconciling sexual behaviour with the ideals of Christian living.     

The Universal Principle of Grace: Feminism and Anti‐Calvinism in Two Seventeenth‐Century Women Writers

This article presents one of the theological contexts for early feminist thought in England in the late seventeenth century. It argues that an emerging universalist soteriology in Platonist and radical thought had a positive impact on discourses about sexual equality, and shows how two female writers (the Quaker Elizabeth Bathurst and the visionary M. Marsin) combined their critique of the doctrine of limited atonement – in other words, the idea of an exclusive elect – with a confident assertion of women's calling to preach and teach in the Church.     

Balancing and Limiting Episcopal Power: Bishop Thomas Barlow’s Use of Common Law in Disputes with Arminian Anglican Clerics

Thomas Barlow was a Reformed theologian simultaneously fighting on three fronts against Catholic, Dissenting Protestant and Arminian Anglican opponents. The first two of these groups threatened the Church of England from the outside, while the last group was transforming Anglican doctrine through its domination of the most important posts in the episcopal hierarchy. Barlow could not argue directly against the power of bishops without assisting the external opponents, yet he had to find a way to prevent other bishops from interfering in his continued support for Reformed theology. In order to reduce their power within the Church of England, Barlow had to look outside the institution for ways to limit his superior’s power. This essay examines two arguments in which Barlow ventured into polemics about the secular law of England in an effort to maintain limits on his Anglican opponents’ exercise of power.     

Feeding Relationship: Uncovering Cosmology in Christian Women's Fellowship in Papua New Guinea

While the Christian doctrine to which Hula villagers of the south east coast of Papua New Guinea today subscribe claims that community is achieved contractually through membership in the Church, this paper suggests that, in practice, Hula sociality is shaped by other exigencies. As part of their program the members of the Iru‐ale United Church Women's Fellowship undertake the incorporation of certain outsiders (in this case the ethnographer) through the ceremonial presentation of food and the act of feeding. A phenomenology of this imperative reveals important connections to pre‐Christian mythology and cosmology. Incorporation seen in this context situates the ‘feeding relationship’ at the core of a Hula ontology in which body and food are consubstantial. The manipulation of food as body is shown to play a determining role in the constitution of various modes of existence; human and non‐human, male and female, the living and the non‐living. The feeding relationship thus facilitates continuity between past and present practices and suggests that the Hula have assimilated the introduced religion into their lifeworld largely on their own terms.     

Jefferson's Legacy to the Supreme Court: Freedom of Religion

Except for Rhode Island, each of the thirteen American colonies created some form of established religion. The English venturists who undertook settlements in New England and Virginia simply assumed that religion would be inextricably tied to their colonial enterprises. ¹ The 1606 charter creating the Virginia colony required that all ministers preach Christianity that followed the “doctrine, rights, and religion now professed and established within the realme of England”—in other words, the Church of England. ² To bolster the struggling Jamestown settlement, in 1610–11, Sir Thomas Dale promulgated “Articles, Lawes, and Orders, Divine, Politic, and Martiall for the Colony in Virginia.” Clergymen were to read “Dale's Laws,” as they were labeled, to assemblies every Sabbath. The thirty‐seven rules included eight that specifically referred to God and prohibited impiety, blasphemy, sacrilege, and irreverence toward preachers or ministers. The sixth law was particularly notable for its strict religious requirements and harsh penalties for violations: “Every man and woman duly twice a day … shall … repair unto the Church to divine service upon pain of losing his or her days allowance for the first omission, for the second to be whipped, and for the third to be condemned to the Gallies for six months. Likewise no man or woman shall dare to violate or break the Sabbath by any gaming … but duly sanctify and observe the same, both himself and his family, by preparing themselves at home with private prayer, that they may be better fitted for the public according to the commandments of God and the orders of our Church. …” ³ Colonists faced the death penalty after the third offense of missing morning and afternoon Sunday devotional services.     

Oliver O'Donovan's Critique of Autonomy

Abstract

More than any other contemporary theologian, Oliver O'Donovan has revived political theology as a field of enquiry. Yet O'Donovan has been consistent in his critique of the modern idea of autonomy, judging it to be at odds with the more communitarian idea of covenanted community found in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. He contrasts this modern idea, and its political implications, with the older biblical idea, also adding some basic points from Aristotle's idea of the polis. But unlike many contemporary communitarians, O'Donovan is also able to incorporate the idea of human rights into his political theology. He sees this supposedly modern idea having fuller precedence in the biblical idea of mishpat ("justice"), which he takes to be God's primordial claim on His covenanted community, a claim that sufficiently grounds both individual rights and communal rights and which enables them to function together. However, O'Donovan draws the line when it comes to the modern social contract theory, arguing that it is at odds with biblical teaching that the primary responsibility of rulers is to divine law. While agreeing with O'Donovan's rejection of autonomy and his acceptance of human rights, this paper argues against O'Donovan's theological rejection of social contract theory. Instead, it argues that a social contract is consistent with the doctrine of the covenant; indeed that the very possibility of the social contract is best explained by the doctrine of the covenant, and that this acceptance of the social contract serves the best political interests of covenanted communities (like the Jewish People and the Christian Church) in an otherwise secular world.     

“Family building in inner quarters”: Conjugal relationship in Tang families

Conjugal relationship has a predominant role in ancient Chinese familial life. Yet most researches on conjugal relationship have tended to focus on the arrangement of marriage, disregarding marital life after wedding. It is the general impression that matrimonial relation follows the ethics of Confucian doctrine of “the husband as principle of the wife,” or relevant code of laws like “Seven Outs,” edited according to these principles. There are three factors that contribute to marital relationship in the Tang Dynasty: ideology, ethics, and written laws. Although written laws are influenced by Confucian ideology, and hence following Confucian system of manners, on the practical level, ordinance still appears as the most reliable source to analyze familial relationships. People in the Tang Dynasty stress family status when they marry wives, yet when marrying concubines, versatility is of interest. Whereas records in official history documents and epitaphs are not entirely accountable, the complicated relationships between husband and wife, husband and concubine, and that between wife and concubine need to be further illustrated.     

Opinion Polls and the Dynamics of the Public Sphere: The Catholic Church in the Federal Republic after 1968

In the aftermath of the Katholikentag in Essen in September1968, conflicts about various issues of religious practice andchurch activities became visible in the Catholic Church in theFederal Republic. These conflicts, and the growing demand forparticipation in the preparation of the Würzburg synodof the West German dioceses (1971-1975), provided the contextfor the first large-scale application of opinion polling inthe Catholic Church. In the spring of 1970, twenty-one millionquestionnaires were distributed to all German Catholics, accompaniedby a survey based on a quota sample of interviewees. The discourseabout the implementation of polling techniques in the churchwas structured along the lines of binary dichotomies. Whereassome theologians and grass-roots activists demanded the inclusionof taboo topics such as the abolition of celibacy, many bishopsand a conservative current feared that the questionnaire wouldallow for new vistas and hence deliberately liberalize and diluteessential elements of Catholic doctrine. Another controversialtopic was the possibility of responsiveness, that is the extentto which decisions of church bodies should react to public opinionas it was reflected in the polls. Not only grass-roots activists,but also the renowned theologian Karl Lehmann were scepticalthat the poll could be used to manipulate public opinion aboutpastoral issues and to gloss over substantial problems. Butthere was also substantial concern about the possible use ofthe polls in a plebiscitarian manner, which would charge factsabout the state of public opinion with normative power. In thecontext of the preparations of the Würzburg Synod, thepolls worked as a technology of the public sphere. In the aftermathof Essen 1968, the politicization of conflicts brought the questionof responsiveness to the forefront. It would be misleading,however, as this example makes clear, to equate the reflectionof public opinion in the polls with a ‘critical’public capable of exercising democratic oversight.     

Should we Abstain? Spousal Equality in Twelfth‐century Byzantine Canon Law

Spousal equality was not an ideal to which medieval societies generally aspired. Discussions about social order advocated a strict hierarchical structure: the man was to be the head of the household and the master of his wife. Did this subservient state of the wife extend to all spheres of family life or was there a space where spouses could act as equals? In this article I focus on one aspect of Byzantine spousal relations: the marital bed. I argue that there was a difference between lay and clerical couples. Among the Byzantine laity, husband and wife were equally responsible for deciding whether to engage in sexual intercourse. Canon law addressed lay husbands and wives as a couple. Among the clergy, however, the husband's responsibilities towards his flock sometimes required him to decide unilaterally in favour of abstinence. According to the law, it was the cleric's duty to ensure that this happened. As such it was he who was addressed and asked to abstain from his wife. More generally, the clerical status of the husband complicated the situation and needs to be taken into account before any generalisations are made about gender inequality.     

A SANCTUARY IN POST-CONFLICT SPACE: THE BAPTIST CHURCH AS A 'MIDDLE OPTION' IN BANOVINA, CROATIA

One of the observable aspects of social change during the transition period in most post-socialist countries is the revival of religion. The resurgence of churches has accompanied national revival and in some countries it is also connected to a growing post-socialist nationalism. This article focuses on the development of different –'transnational'– religious options in an area of ethnic conflict by presenting a case study of the post-war growth of the Baptist Church in the Banovina region in Croatia, close to the Bosnian border. Research results are based on halfstructured interviews with church representatives and members.
The research shows that there has been a considerable post-war expansion of the Baptist Church in the Banovina region, and that it is mainly ethnic Serbs and people from mixed marriages who have joined the Church. Many of them have a background as communists. For them, neither the Catholic Church, which is regarded as a Croatian church, nor the Serbian Orthodox Church are viable religious options. Instead, there are three factors that make the 'Baptist option' attractive. First, it is grounded in the historical tradition of the Baptist Church in this region and on memories and myths activated in the war and post-war periods. Second, the Baptist Church has made a middle transnational option available in an ethnically mixed area. As such it attracts those who are searching for a niche of neutrality in an ethnically strongly divided region characterized by conflict. Third, the considerable humanitarian work and help of organizations related to the Baptist Church during and after the war not only added in the eyes of many people in need to its image elements of existential shelter, but also brought the Church out of the shadows and made it more 'visible'– thereby improving its former reputation as an obscure sect.     

New evidence for the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles from Fatih Camii, Istanbul

The Church of the Holy Apostles was one of the most important buildings in Byzantine Constantinople. The mausolea of Constantine the Great (the main imperial burial place until the eleventh century) and of Justinian I were in the complex surrounding this vast cruciform church. Nothing of this complex appeared to have survived its demolition to clear the site of the Ottoman mosque complex of Fatih Camii after 1461. Fieldwork in 2001 recorded walls pre–dating the fifteenth–century phase of the mosque complex, still standing above ground level and apparently including a large rectilinear structure. This is identified as the Church of the Holy Apostles and an adjacent enclosure may be that containing the mausoleum of Constantine the Great. The reconstructed church plan resembles those of St John of Ephesus and St Mark's (San Marco), Venice – churches known to have been modelled on the Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople.     

Ready, willing, and able to divorce: an economic and cultural history of divorce in twentieth-century Sweden

This study outlines a long history of divorce in Sweden, recognizing the importance of considering both economic and cultural factors in the analysis of marital dissolution. Following Ansley Coale, the authors examine how a framework of multiple theoretical constructs, in interaction, can be applied to the development toward mass divorce. Applying a long historical perspective, the authors argue that an analysis of gendered aspects of the interaction between culture and economics is crucial for the understanding of the rise of mass divorce. The empirical analysis finds support for a marked decrease in legal and cultural obstacles to divorce already during the first decades of the twentieth century. However, economic structures remained a severe obstacle that prohibited significant increases in divorce rate prior to World War II. It was only during the 1940s and 1960s, when cultural change was complemented by marked decreases in economic interdependence between spouses, that the divorce rate exhibited significant increases. The authors find that there are advantages to looking at the development of divorce as a history in which multiple empirical factors are examined in conjunction, recognizing that these factors played different roles during different time periods.     

Military doctrine,command philosophy and the generation of fighting power: genesis and theory

Military doctrine is one of the conceptual components of war. Its raison d'être is that of a force multiplier. It enables a smaller force to take on and defeat a larger force in battle. This article's departure point is the aphorism of Sir Julian Corbett, who described doctrine as ‘the soul of warfare’. The second dimension to creating a force multiplier effect is forging doctrine with an appropriate command philosophy. The challenge for commanders is how, in unique circumstances, to formulate, disseminate and apply an appropriate doctrine and combine it with a relevant command philosophy. This can only be achieved by policy‐makers and senior commanders successfully answering the Clausewitzian question: what kind of conflict are they involved in? Once an answer has been provided, a synthesis of these two factors can be developed and applied. Doctrine has implications for all three levels of war. Tactically, doctrine does two things: first, it helps to create a tempo of operations; second, it develops a transitory quality that will produce operational effect, and ultimately facilitate the pursuit of strategic objectives. Its function is to provide both training and instruction. At the operational level instruction and understanding are critical functions. Third, at the strategic level it provides understanding and direction. Using John Gooch's six components of doctrine, it will be argued that there is a lacunae in the theory of doctrine as these components can manifest themselves in very different ways at the three levels of war. They can in turn affect the transitory quality of tactical operations. Doctrine is pivotal to success in war. Without doctrine and the appropriate command philosophy military operations cannot be successfully concluded against an active and determined foe.     

‘Assisting you to become a local’: NGOs and constructed foreign spouses in Eastern Taiwan

As social and cultural contexts change and globalization spreads, the number of transnational-marriage migrants mainly from Southeast Asia has increased in Taiwan. Using institutional ethnography, this article investigates the roles of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and projects aimed at helping foreign spouses to adapt to their new life. I mainly elaborate that NGOs emerge as important actors in assisting and empowering transnational spouses to ‘become locals’. In empowerment projects, foreign spouses are given a voice to elaborate themselves. However, this article elaborates that these projects are a scheme of education to shape each such migrant into a proper ‘Taiwanese wife/mother/daughter-in-law’. Also, these projects particularly promote ‘exoticism’ of migrants and become key sources of how local people understand the images of ‘foreign spouses’. As a result, though NGOs play positive roles in empowering foreign spouses, we need to be aware that NGOs’ efforts may ironically become a mechanism to strengthen transnational spouses’ gender roles and cultural stereotypes.     

中世纪西欧教会法对教会与国家关系的理解和规范

本文依据中世纪西欧《教会法大全》讨论当时教会与国家的关系。中世纪的教会法学家和教皇们有一种二元论的政治理论 ,认为世俗政权和以教皇为首的教会领导机构应该有各自不同的势力范围 ,前者负责国家的治理 ,后者负责宗教事务。他们以为这一理论有利于教会和国家保持良好的合作关系。为了划分清楚教会和国家的权威范围 ,教会法学家把教会法界定为独立的法律体系。在复杂的现实政治中 ,对世俗权力和宗教权力做这种区分是极为困难的。