The history of marriage (from a comment on another blog)

[fpb]

The drift away from normative lifelong monogamous marriage seems to be as old as the human race. That seems to me to be what Our Lord meant when He said: "Moses told you so [allowing divorce] because of the hardness of your hearts, but from the beginning it was not so." Jesus had asked "What did Moses teach you [about marriage]?" And he had been

Comments

[ravenclaw_eric]

All right. You tell me what she was supposed to do with the King of England setting his cap for her? Particularly since Henry VIII was quite a bit more of an absolute monarch than the Yorkists or other prior dynasties had ever been?

Leave England? How is she to do this, and where is she to go, and how is she to live? Particularly since her family would almost certainly not have been supportive.

Marry someone else? Look up what happened to people who made marriages that Elizabeth I didn't approve of...even if it could have been said to be none of the Queen's rightful business. And Elizabeth was a lot easier to deal with than Henry VIII.

Kill herself? That's a mortal sin.

Ann was caught in a cleft stick, but good. And while I pity Catherine of Aragon deeply, a sonless queen was always in danger of being replaced. Look at what happened to Eleanor of Aquitaine, even though losing her dropped her ex into an entire whirlpool of trouble and lost him control of much of his kingdom. Charles II had to put up with a lot of suggestions about getting rid of Catherine of Braganza, and, all honor to him, he squashed them very firmly, even though he really needed a son to succeed him.

As for making something happen to Catherine, there were all sorts of ways that wouldn't scream "Murder!" A dose of acqua tofania would have done the trick with room to spare. Sudden mortal illness was not at all unknown in those days, and did not spare royalty---Edward IV died very suddenly and much younger than people had expected.