"I DO, I DO": MEDIEVAL MODELS OF MARRIAGE AND CHOICE OF PARTNERS IN MARIE DE FRANCE'S "LE FRAISNE"

Romanic Review, Nov 2001 by Hurtig, Dolliann Margaret

Quant nostre fille avum trovee,

grant joie nus a Deus donee,

ainz que li pechiez fust dublez.

'Fille,' fet il, 'avant venez!' (495-499)

['I was never as happy as I am now

that we have found our daughter.

God has given us great joy rather

than allowing the sin to be doubled.

Daughter, come here!']

The father's reference to a sin "doubled" is somewhat puzzling. The most apparent sin that the text illumines is the abandonment of Le Fraisne by her mother. What the passage suggests is that to deny Le Fraisne her birthright a second time by refusing her the opportunity to make a suitable marriage as a daughter of a wealthy feudal lord would be a sin twice over.

The father of Le Fraisne summons the Archbishop to whom falls the responsibility of unmaking or annulling the mariage de convenance between La Coldre and Gurun. According to the Church model of marriage, a marriage that has not yet been consummated can be annulled (Brundage, Sex, Law, and Marriage 407). The annulment favors the Church and her consensual theory of marriage as Maddox observes: "... the annulment of La Codre's marriage of convenience in favor of her sister privileges conjugal reciprocity based on affective inclination"(59).

The father of the twins readily bestows upon his daughter Le Fraisne one half of his inheritance. As the caput mansi, he gives the bride in marriage to Gurun in a second public celebration amidst family and friends, feasting and much merriment:

Granz noces refunt de rechief;

a un riche hume sereit greif

d'esligier ceo qu'il despendirent

al grant convive que il firent. (521-524)

[A grand wedding is celebrated once more in splendor,

a wealthy man would be hard pressed

to pay the expense

of such a sumptuous feast.]

What occurs in this scene is a happy mingling of the two medieval models of marriage. Similar to other marriages among the nobility, Le Fraisne's marriage, as a mariage de convenance, creates a network of alliances to maintain the system's survival. Yet her marriage is also a love match, a manage d'amour. And this marriage has the approval, the blessing of the Church fathers. "Le Fraisne" is circulating somewhere about the time of the Alexandrian synthesis (1163) when the Church, as has been stated earlier, strongly favors the consent of the couple to their union. To be good shepherds of the flock, it appears to be the duty of the Church to unite God's children in a marriage based on love, on Gratian's earlier assertion of "marital affection" (Noonan 425).

To duplicate the traditional model of marriage is not what the Church is about. The will of the heavenly Father for His children to be bound in marital affection prevails over the will of an earthly father's interest in the continuation of the patrimony. That the father in "Le Fraisne" aligns his will with that of the couple in love is no doubt favorable to the Church and to her consensual theory. And thus it comes about that the ecclesiastical model of marriage entwines the lay one without a hitch, and in its embrace foreshadows a revolutionary way of looking at marriage.