Premium
The history of marriage and the myth of Friedelehe
Author(s) -
Karras Ruth Mazo
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
early medieval europe
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1468-0254
pISSN - 0963-9462
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0254.2006.00177.x
Subject(s) - legal guardian , institution , mythology , history , genealogy , period (music) , sociology , law , classics , political science , art , aesthetics
The idea that Friedelehe and Muntehe constituted two distinct forms of Germanic marriage was based upon an attempt to reconstruct common Germanic culture with scraps of evidence from widely different times and places. A thorough re‐examination of the sources for the institutions that were posited, based on this now outmoded methodology, reveals no evidence that transfer of Munt, or guardianship, distinguished between two different types of marriage, except perhaps in Lombard Italy, under the influence of Roman law. The idea that marriage with a dos is a different institution from marriage without one is not attested until the Carolingian period.