Changes

While it is true that the spread of Christianity in Europe and Middle East did further make monogamous marriage the norm, history of this was complex. In some cases, early Christians from the Middle East formed polygamous unions, where early church leaders often did not interfere in these cultural practices. Josephus, the Jewish writer from the 1st century AD, indicates polygamy still practiced by Jews and Jewish converts to Christianity seemed to have continued this practice. In fact, the clash of polygamy and monogamy occurred as a cultural clash between Roman society, that saw polygamy as unacceptable, and Jewish culture. Early Christian writers did seem to discourage polygamy in their believers. Augustine, Justin Martyr, and Basil were among those who tried to discourage it. The debates in the early church though suggest that for a period early Christianity likely had two practices, where some only accepted monogamy while others conducted polygamy. This stems more from cultural variation between Middle Eastern and Southern European marriage systems, namely Greek and Roman. In fact, it was Augustine who went on to have the most influence on views of marriage in the developing Western tradition after Christianity. Namely, while being celibate was better, following the example of Christ, marriage was preferable over fornication.

With the Roman Catholic Church gaining increasing power in Europe, marriage was still an area left to civil law. This stemmed from Roman and even northern European tradition where marriage was not seen as a sacred act. Although marriage, from the time of Augustine, was increasingly performed in church, laws regulating it often derived from civil laws, sometimes influenced by pre-Christian law. This changed in the 12th century, where an edict was passed by the Pope that now defined marriage as a holy sacrament. This not only solidified marriage but also made it very hard to divorce, as it was now seen as a permanent bond between a man and woman. Adultery or death could break that bond, but an annulment had to be granted by the Church. This developed as a reaction against the Cathars, which was a Christian and Gnostic inspired movement that saw marriage and sexuality as human acts to avoid and as being intertwined with the world and, therefore, evil. These Gnostic ideas had a lot of similar views to Manichaean philosophy that often also had views against any form of marriage.  The next big change to marriage occurred in the Reformation period in the 16th century. At this point, marriage was once again moved back to state authority. This time, Christian Protestants saw marriage as a civil act and the privy of government, as originally seen by Luther. This also meant that divorce could be obtained through civil action if the marriage contract was broken. In effect, marriage became more defined as a civil binding contract rather than holy sacrament.