| This dissertation draws on 64 matrimonial enforcement suits that were heard in the Paduan ecclesiastical court during the course of the fifteenth century. Significantly, most plaintiffs were men and not women who had been seduced by a nefarious lothario. I believe that the social and economic dislocations that followed the conquest of the city by Venice, in 1405, drove men to fight harder in the marriage market, especially where money was concerned. And it was men who were largely in control of both sides of these suits, despite the fact that 50% of the named parties were women. However, there was room to maneuver in this patriarchal environment, though active women were the exception and not the rule.;At the heart of these cases was an alleged marriage, and each plaintiff submitted a series of allegations (positiones) to support their claims. Significantly, men and women shared a basically similar understanding of marriage. Though men were more apt to cite "physical" attributes of marriage, such as handclasping or kisses, to bolster their case, while women, on the other hand, more often emphasized less tangible signs of matrimony, such as claiming that the defendant "acted like a husband" toward them. However, women were just as likely as men to claim that they had consummated the marriage, despite their aversion to the kind of sexually-charged pieces of evidence favored by men. I believe that this is because the Paduan laity had only partially absorbed the canonical model of marriage in which only the exchange of vows in the present tense made a marriage. Despite more than two centuries of indoctrination to the contrary, marriage was still a spiritual and physical act for these Paduans.;Finally, many plaintiffs did not win; in fact, roughly one-third were disappointed by the verdict. Even the plaintiffs who hired expensive professional legal counsel did no better than those who represented themselves. Moreover, men were no more likely than women to win validation of their claim. Taken as a whole, these cases show a court that decided cases based on their merit, and not on external factors such as gender, wealth, or level of representation. In a world where birth and money often tipped the balance, the Paduan curia seems to have been a bastion of honest justice. |
