Puritans And Marriage Essay

Puritans viewed marriage as a civil contract as opposed to the Church of England who took a more religious approach to marriage. Since Puritans did not see marriage as a holy commitment, but rather as a mere legal contract irrelevant to one's religious views, the Puritans believed that a marriage ceremony should be performed by a magistrate and not a member of the clergy. This issue of Puritans not recognizing marriage as being linked to religion, allowed them not to see the end of a marriage as a sin. They believed that if the initially agreements made at the beginning of the marriage were broken; there was cause for the marriage to end. They allowed for a divorce in instances that included “adultery, fraudulent contract, willful desertion and total …show more content…
The Puritans “cherished true love, and insisted that it was a prerequisite of a happy marriage” so did not arrange marriages between young people. According to the Puritan standards, free consent to get married is needed by the person and arranged marriage is greatly frowned upon so it happened rarely. In fact, some “children have successfully sued their fathers and mothers for refusing to marry”. Before marriage, the couple is to follow strict courtship process in order to get to know each other. After the suitor asked permission to marry from the girl's parents, there was to be a physical distance between the couple when courting in order to prevent sex outside of marriage. Courtship was supervised because the purpose of the Puritan view was for the young couple to fall in love. Sex outside of marriage, was not allowed in the Puritan belief system. As for Puritan weddings, they were not extravagant affairs, and ceremonies did not include vows or rings. The weddings were usually a simple, short civil process where a small dinner would follow after the couple signed the court