The Man Case

There are many restrictions that a couple faced over 100 years ago. For example, no children before marriage, no sex before marriage, no same sex marriage, and no remarriage. The impact that the restrictions had kept marriage a sacrament. The restriction on no re-marriage in the Catholic Church showed that you would only love and marry one person.

Marriage in the Catholic Church was a life long commitment to one person from the opposite sex for your whole life. If a couple were to get divorced then the Catholic Church refused to re-marry them dues to the couple breaking the sacrament of marriage. The Catholic Church also refused to marry a catholic to a non catholic because it was seen as degrading the holy character of matrimony. However, the restrictions of marriage have been loosened.

The Catholic Church's marriage service was significantly different 100 years ago mainly due to how society was then. For example: The priest would organise the entire wedding, there were no prayers of the faithful and the priest chose and read all the readings. The whole ceremony was in Latin. Family and friends were not included in the planning of the wedding. There was no pre-marriage course available. Marriage was seen to be a way to secure finances and continue the husband's family name. Women were seen as property and had no money or land under their own name. When the couple married everything got transferred into the husband's possession. There were clear defined roles in the marriage, men worked outside the home and women looked after the children, cooked and cleaned. Men had absolute power and made the decisions. They got married to create a secure environment for raising children, provide a stable social and family life, and provide a system of rules. Marriage was usually an arrangement between families and the couple would have varying degrees of involvement in the decision.