Enlightenment Thinkers on Marriage

Abstract

Two centuries after Montaigne's reflective discussion of marriage in the sixteenth century, Enlightenment thinkers also expressed their views on the issue of marriage. In his Letters to the Persians, Montesquieu expressed his desire for a "marriage of the heart", a contract in which the marriage should be based on the unity of the couple's temperament, and therefore the marriage should be dissolved if the temperament is not compatible. In addition, marriage is a matter of social welfare and interest, so the secular and religious powers should reconcile their handling of marriage matters and avoid conflicts between civil and religious laws as much as possible. Voltaire, on the other hand, fully supported the secularization of marriage and demanded a strict distinction between the content and the form of marriage, contract and sacrament. He claimed that the Church's interference in marriage matters would threaten the secular authority and lead to the disruption of the laws of the state. Secular authority should prevail, and religious law should not undermine civil law. Rousseau, on the other hand, saw good marriage as a necessary condition for the formation of political citizens. Marriage is not a "natural" situation, but rather it is related to the obligations and nature of the state, and thus the marriage relationship is essentially political. Although each of the three Enlightenment thinkers had a distinctive view of marriage, they also showed a striking consensus, especially in linking marriage to society, which was different from the individualistic view of marriage in the Renaissance. The purpose of this paper is to explore the conceptions of marriage by Enlightenment thinkers to better understand the changes in the concept of marriage since the Renaissance and the issues of marriage before and after the French Revolution that underlie them.