From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (Family, Religion, and Culture) [Paperback]

John Witte Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1997 | Series: Family, Religion, and Culture

In From Sacrament to Contract, John Witte Jr. offers a study of five conflicting models of marriage--Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, and Enlightenment--and their social and political impact over the last thousand years. In so doing, Witte shows how we arrived at the notion of marriage as contract.

The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective and provides practical assistance for the family's revitalization.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In his From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Law, and the Western Tradition, Emory University's John Witte makes a landmark contribution to Western intellectual history by showing how five competing models of marriage emerged and affected both church and civil law. Marriage as sacrament in the Roman Catholic tradition is followed by the Lutheran view of marriage as social estate, the Calvinist version as covenant, the Anglican concept as commonwealth, and the Enlightenment rendition as contract, the legacy with which we seem currently to be stuck." -- Eric Mount, Jr. in Theology Today, April 1998

"It is rare for a just-published book to be immediately considered a potential classic in Christian theology and ethics . . . John Witte, Jr.'s From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition . . . is far and away the finest available history of Christian social thought on marriage and family . . . [It] will re-establish marriage and family as being central in mainstream Protestant Christian social thought, theology, and ethics, thereby correcting at least several decades of relative neglect . . .

In From Sacrament to Contract, Witte provides what s unquestionably the finest history of western marriage in the Christian epoch. He focuses on theological and ethical models of marriage in the Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, and Enlightenment contexts. Informed by a wealth of primary sources--many of which Witte has highlighted for the first time--the author shows how these models have directly impacted domestic law and organization. There is simply no other treatise that conveys the history and cultural impact of Christian social thought in such a thorough and penetrating fashion." --Stephen G. Post, PhD. in Journal of Religion, 79:4 October 1999

About the Author

John Witte Jr. is Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Alonzo L. McDonald Distinguished Professor, and Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: WJK; 1. Ed edition (December 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0664255434
• ISBN-13: 978-0664255435
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #341,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Witte, Jr. is Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Alonzo L. McDonald
Distinguished Professor, and Director of the Center for the Study of Law and
Religion Center at Emory University. A specialist in legal history, marriage law, and religious liberty, he has published 180 articles, 13 journal symposia, and 24 books.

Professor Witte's writings have appeared in ten languages, and he has lectured
and convened conferences through North America, Western and Eastern
Europe, Japan, Israel, and South Africa. With major funding from the Pew, Ford,Lilly, Luce, and McDonald foundations, he has directed 12 major international projects on democracy, human rights, and religious liberty, and on marriage, family, and children. These projects have collectively yielded more than 160 new volumes and 250 public forums around the world. He edits two major book series, "Studies in Law and Religion," and "Religion, Marriage and Family." He has been selected ten times by the Emory law students as the Most Outstanding Professor and has won dozens of other awards and prizes for his teaching and research.

Professor Witte is married to Eliza Ellison. They have two daughters and two grandchildren.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Legal and Theological History of Marriage, May 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (Family, Religion, and Culture) (Paperback)

This outstanding contribution to scholarship in the history of law and religion analyzes the interplay between Christian theological norms and Western legal principles in family life. Departing from Voltaire's quip that the Christian family is either "a little church, a little state, or a little club," John Witte, Jr., Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law and Ethics at Emory University School of Law examines the theology and law of the family in the Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, and Enlightenment traditions.

The account begins with the development of the medieval Catholic canon law of marriage in an effort to combat the phenomenon of "secret marriage." Indeed, Witte reveals that prior to the systematization of the canon law and the sacraments, couples could proclaim themselves to be married with none of the public ceremonies, present witnesses, and festive celebrations that would become the classic wedding accoutrements in subsequent centuries. Given the disarray of the canon law and the sacramental system before this medieval synthesis, any couple who thought they were married probably were married.

The social and covenantal dimensions of marriage replaced the sacramental dimension as the hallmarks of the theology of the family in the Protestant Reformation, which Witte examines in its Lutheran and Calvinistic expressions. It was in this era that many of the trappings of the modern wedding, such as witnesses and church ceremonies, came into existence. The Anglican tradition encompassed the sacramental, social, and covenantal models in a commonwealth model that linked the common good of the couple, their children, the church, and the state in a model that became increasingly egalitarian and democratized, tracking political progress within the British commonwealth.

The ironic result of the development of marriage law and theology in the Christian West is that the move toward greater regulation and publicity in the Catholic, Reformation, and Anglican traditions was eventually largely overturned by the Enlightenment notions of contract and rights. Marriage came to be conceived largely as a private and completely voluntary contract--a bargain struck seemingly at arm's length by parties seeking the most intimate of associations. The Enlightenment model is, in essence, the model that is our legacy in the present day. It is this journey from sacrament to contract that characterizes marriage in the West and has led us to where we are today in the law and lore of marriage and family. Witte's work is a remarkable chronicle of the social practices, legal doctrines, and theological foundations encountered along the way.