Foreword

When the Present Became Future: The Ambiguity behind the Consent in the Marriage Rite of the 1662Book of Common Prayer

“…Sheehan concluded that this uncertainty 'must have been fairly widespread where unsophisticated men and women, moved by who knows what desires and pressures, tried to establish a relationship within the categories and the procedures demanded by a custom which in part was the debris of a culture that no longer existed and in part was a ritual statement of a new and vastly different view of marriage'. 30 R.H. Helmholz's broader study of medieval marriage legislation from the thirteenth century to 1500 paints a similar confusing picture. Whereas canon lawyers regarded the contract de presenti to establish a marriage, many laymen regarded it as a contract to marry in the future.…”