Marriage is one of the earliest forms of relationships. From a biblical perspective, Adam and Eve were the first spouses that gave rise to today’s people. However, generations later, many religions came up, each with their interpretation of marriage. This difference resulted in different conduct across religions, prompting a deeper understanding of marriage. To do this, this paper will analyze the major points of change in Protestant and Islamic marriages, explaining why the changes happened and showing the differences between the two.
Protestantism
During the 16th-century reformation era, early Protestant thought adopted the view of marriage as a covenant. Just as God had made a covenant with Israel, so did a man and woman make a covenant between themselves and God. The early reformers rejected the Catholic idea that the sole purpose of marriage was procreation and that they were conducted by the church thus rendering them sacramental. Martin Luther believed that marriage was a normal status for all, including priests (127), and this thought was adopted by later protestant thought. Ideally, marriage was God-given and the spouses, through God’s grace, would continue to love one another until death. As such, both parties were bound to one another in love, which was God-given in the form of grace.
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Over the next century, this idea was promoted by the works of William Perkins, who viewed marriage as a government, friendship and economic life. Since marriage was the first relationship given by God when he brought a helper for the first man, Perkins believed that society emerges from this union. Therefore, spouses had an internal duty to one another, borne out of love, as well as an external one to the society (). This duty-based approach to marriage brought a divide in the puritan movement. For instance, Thomas Gataker was of the view that love was the source of duty in a Christian marriage and its source was divine grace (). On the other hand, William Gouge believed that adherence to objectively defined duties by both spouses was a true sign of the presence of divine grace (). With this division in thought, the idea of divorce came in, as some like William Whatley believed that non-performance of these duties could stretch the bond of marriage (). Others like John Milton proposed that where incompatibility was present, then the marriage was not ordained by God, consummated or not. In the end, Perkins's theory of covenant marriage as both internal and external proved more plausible, as opposed to separating the two components.
Islam
Marriage in Islam was different from covenant marriage above. In the first place, husbands were only obligated to feed their wives. Wives, however, had to cater for their other needs as well as their children’s. Second, divorce was much more common in Islam. The husband could at any time divorce his wife without need for her consent. In the other instance, a wife could claim neglect by the husband and be granted a divorce, taking with her any property that she brought to the marriage. In Islamic law, a husband was required to offer marital support and pay a marriage gift. These were divided into an advance payment before consummation of the marriage, with the balance payable after a set number of years or upon dissolution of the marriage. However, by the 15th century, marriages had a monetary value attached to them as wives demanded to be paid this gift and support in the course of the marriage instead of at the end of the stated years. this brought with it changes in the hierarchical system in marriage, with wives gaining an upper hand, leading to the widespread divorce cases in Islamic communities.
Though the marriage gifts were recorded in the marriage contracts, the real obligations agreed to in informal settings were usually much lower. Marriage contracts were a means of showing social status, thus it was common practice to double the actual amount in the contract. This later brought with it problems when divorce was concerned since judges would go as per the marriage contract. As time progressed, payment of these gifts gradually changed, to include settlements between the living spouse and the heirs after the death of a spouse or agreements between spouses when they anticipated the death of one. An example is one of a tribal Amir from Aswan in 742/1341 who, in his marriage contract, had agreed to pay his wife’s marriage gift through yearly installments, though this did not happen. After his death, the family settled on giving the wife half of his lands and some slaves. In return, she forfeited her claims to the remaining part of her marriage gift. Wives in Islam had a lot of power over their husbands and where they could not agree on the administration of marriage gifts, the results were dire for the husbands.
Protestant and Islamic processes of legal change are quite different as seen above. The main reason is that in Protestantism husband and wife were equal through grace, and divorce was not a factor or was a result of a non-Godly union. In Islam, the husband exercised his control over the wife and children, but with time, wives were able to take this control through the marriage gifts. This shift in control brought on disagreements that resulted in divorce. From the two religions, it is quite clear that a shift in earlier forms of marriage brought with it vast changes that can be felt to date.
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