The institution of marriage in feudal private law

Marriage is one of the most complex social phenomena, an essential medium for
the birth and development of the individual, but also for the birth of the family
and society. From a legal point of view, this complexity is also the starting
point: at the same time it is a basic institution serving individual, private, family
and social, constitutional and public good. Marriage law, which today falls
within the competence of both church and state legislation and law enforcement,
has undergone great changes and developments from early societies to the
present day.
The topic of my presentation is the institution of marriage in Hungarian private
law, which I would start by defining family law. In the simplest terms, the
family is the community of parents, their children, and their closest relatives, the
basic cell of society, the state, and the church. In feudal Hungarian law, there
was a difference between the genus (family in the broadest sense) and the actual
family (in the narrower sense). The genus meant the economic and political
unity of those of the same genus. The genus was made up of brothers, male
relatives descended from the male branch. Women were transferred from their
father's family to their husbands by marriage. The actual family was made up of
a wife, children, and guardians who were under the authority of the same family
father. The first community of the family is the inseparable marital relationship
between a man and a woman (monogamy), a whole life community determined
by a man and a woman, which by its nature is for the benefit of the spouses, the
procreation and upbringing of children. From this we can also see that the
determining element of family law institutions is the law of marriage.
Similar to Western European states, in early Hungarian law the rules of family
and marital relations were typically maintained by the church. Marriage was the
institution of law where Christian ideas had their earliest effects.
In the age of state formation, the two oldest forms of marriage were abduction
and marriage. Kidnapping was a peculiar way of obtaining a wife, it was an
acquisition from a foreign tribe or people. According to the old Hungarian law,
the marriage took place through marriage, ie the man bought the woman, but the
fathers of the couple agreed on the purchase price. However, with the advent of
Christianity, domestic customs were relegated to the background, and marriage
came under the jurisdiction of the Church. In the twentieth century, the
canonical principle that marriage is the result of the agreement of a man and a
woman slowly became widespread.
A new and at the same time still influential stage of the development of
Hungarian marriage law was the Council of Trent (16th century), which
regulated in detail the formal and substantive legal rules of marriage.
The marriage consisted of two parts, the first of which was the engagement, in
which case it was only possible to withdraw on good cause. The second part is
the wedding, which was valid if the parties mutually declared their intention to
marry in the presence of at least two witnesses before the competent parish
priest of one of the two parties to be married.
In addition, the Council of Trent set out the substantive legal conditions for
marriage, as it listed cases of marriage annulment: Under the rules of customary
law, a boy under the age of 14 and a girl under the age of 12 could not enter into
a valid marriage; Initially, the laws of Stephen I (St.) forbade all marriages
retroactively until the seventh taste of blood relationship. the Council of Lateran
considered the covenant bound within a quarter of a quarter invalid; in the case
of Catholics, marriage was considered invalid because of both legal (adoption
included) and spiritual kinship (brotherhood, coma, baptism, worship). In
addition, infertility, the impossibility of marriage, was an obstacle. In addition, a
valid marriage could not have taken place if either party had already been in a
valid marriage. The marriage of the servants in the bondage was an obstacle, as
they could only marry with the permission of the landlords. Among other things,
the crime was an obstacle to marriage. Marriage can be annulled for two
offenses: marriage and adultery. In addition, for Catholics, priestly order and the
solemn vow made were also an obstacle to marriage. Religious difference as an
obstacle to marriage II. He first appeared strongly in the time of Andrew.
Furthermore, a marriage was invalid due to lack of will if the person to be
married was incapable of acting if the marriage was contracted by force, threat
or error.
In the event that there were no divorce grounds but divorce grounds, the
marriage could not be entered into, but if it had already been entered into, it was
annulled. The Council of Trent is a so-called it also identified prohibitive
obstacles that did not in themselves invalidate the marriage. However, if such a
reason existed and the marriage still took place the parties were punished.
Marriages during the fasting period and in the first year of widowhood were
prohibited.
The church considered marriage inseparable, but only the so-called separation
from bed and table was possible, which only abolished the cohabitation.
Protestants, on the other hand, already had the opportunity to divorce, which
could be due to adultery, unfaithful abandonment, a break in the life of a spouse,
and “unforgivable hatred”.
First, Protestant countries began to introduce civil marriage, a line that was later
followed by Catholic countries. In Hungary II. Joseph first raised the idea of
introducing civil marriage. However, the provisions of the King of Hats were
revoked after his death and the Parliament of 1790-91 restored the previous legal
regulation. Subsequently, until 1894, marriage legislation was primarily
concerned with the regulation of mixed marriages, especially the issue of
adjudication in matrimonial proceedings and the religion of children born of
mixed marriages.
The issue of civil marriage was again on the agenda after the compromise, and
in 1868 the first attempt was made to settle the issue of mixed marriages. They
also provided that children of spouses of different religions follow their parents
’religion according to their gender.
After years of parliamentary deliberation, Act No. 31 of 1894 was passed. on
matrimonial law, which broke with previous denominational legal systems,
sanctified uniform state regulation, the judiciary, and compulsory civil marriage.
Act 31 of 1894 on the Law of Marriage entered into force on 1 October 1895
and, with several substantive amendments, was formally maintained until 31
December 1952.
In summary:
In Hungary, marriage dates back to the founding of the state, despite the fact that
the abduction and marriage that took place at the time was a very rudimentary
form of marriage. After the spread of Christianity, it was under the strict rules of
canon law for more than 800 years. The reign of canon law over the law of
marriage ended with the passage of the Marriage Act of 1894.