“Village Letters on Civil Marriage”

Church Criticism of Civil Marriage in 1868

Abstract

The main area of my doctoral research is the examination of matrimonial legal systems, with special regard to the functioning of the optional civil matrimonial system. During this research I came across a small print entitled Facultative Letters on Civil Marriage, which expresses the Roman Catholic Church’s opinion on the introduction of the institution of civil marriage at the end of the 19^th century in a way that is understandable to the less educated populations.

In my study I present the social system and situation in which the above-mentioned work was written, and I discuss the aspects that influenced the formation of society’s opinion about civil marriage. I pay special attention to the opinions of contemporary jurisprudence, the attitude of the press, and the opinions of the major legal personalities and political figures of the time.

I thoroughly analyse the legally appreciable content of the ten letters contained in the publication, highlighting the specific features of family law. In addition, I analyse the second publication, published later in 1893, which expands the information available through the analysis of the first publication.

Putting all these together makes it possible to get to know the opinion of the part of Hungarian society adhering to religion regarding the changes in family policy and family law, which significantly changed the way of thinking about marriage in jurisprudence at the end of the 19^th century.