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Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother? Child Marriage and Parental Consent in John Calvin’s Geneva
- Author(s):
- John Witte, Jr. (see profile)
- Date:
- 2006
- Subject(s):
- Calvin, Jean, 1509-1564
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Geneva, Decalogue, Parental Consent, Child Abuse, 1546 Marriage Ordinance, Law and religion, Parents, Children, Marriage, John Calvin
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/373h-2j62
- Abstract:
- Parental consent to engagement and marriage was a major reform that the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation introduced to stamp out the late medieval Catholic toleration of clandestine marriages. John Calvin introduced the doctrine of parental consent to Protestant Geneva both in statutes that he drafted and in cases that he adjudicated as a member of the Genevan Consistory. Calvin and his fellow reformers insisted on the priority of the father's consent over the mother's consent, but also insisted that even the father could not override his child's own consent to an engagement or marriage contract. Parents and guardians who neglected their duties or abused their authority at this fateful stage of their child's lives were severely punished and often forfeited their right to have their child's secret marriage annulled.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 4 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
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