The Medieval Church Of Sexual Norms

Christianity predominates the whole Western Europe in Middle Ages. Since Western Roman Empire was perished, the church turned into the only political and cultural organization in Western Europe. It tried to take responsibility for saving and disseminating Western European culture. The church became a "lighthouse" of civilization and it played an important role in politics,economy and culture. In order to retain familial intergrity and social stability, the church also answered for guiding social conduct and protecting social ethos. In order to explain the roles which Medieval church played on sexual ethics, this paper analyses the changes of churchly attitude and regulations toward the sex of marriage as well as outside marriage.This paper consists of five parts.The Preface introduces the basis of researching this issue, and it also introduces the achievements on this issue both domestic and overseas.Chapter 1 mainly describes the churchly attitude towards sex——asceticism,the Church Fathers' views toward women and sex. We also can glimpse at the disputation of churchly interior on asceticism and marriage.Chapter 2 mainly describes the contradiction of German and Church in determining the validity of marriage, the Church finally identified the "principle of consent" as the necessary condition for the validity of marriage. The church elaborated the " Conjugal debt" theory and strictly regulate sex in the marriage, made it just for the purpose of sexual reproduction.Chapter 3 focuses on the churchly regulation on the outside marriage, including cohabitation, rape, adultery and prostitute etc.Conclusion part sums up the roles of Medieval churchly regulation on marriage and outside marriage, it safeguarded the Medieval social stability and development.