Legality of Marriage

In class on Wednesday, we read the story of Giovanni and Lusanna. One theme that was interesting to me from this reading was what made a marriage official . Giovanni argues that his marriage to Lusanna was not official because, mostly, it was done in secret. Since it was secret, there were not as many witnesses to the marriage as there usually would have been. Also, even though there was an officiator there, that still did not necessarily mean that the marriage actually happened. I think that it is interesting that during the renaissance era there needed to be a public ceremony for a marriage to be considered official. This consisted of basically the entire town coming out and witnessing the marriage. I think that this leaves a lot of room for the guy to trick a young girl into “marriage” and then it is never truly official. This would kind of ruin the girl because she would not be as desirable to another man because she was no longer a virgin. Because of this, I am on the side of Lusanna and believe that they were actually married. There was a ceremony and someone from the clergy to officiate it, and thus I think theyG entered into a legal marriage.

-That’s all I have for now. Until later…