To annul a marriage because of impotence, it may seem unrealistic. And yet … In the 16th and 17th centuries, men accused of not being able to impregnate their wives were invited to prove their virility in court. Woe to those who were incapable of it.
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When you get married, it’s for life. In any case, this is the conception that the Catholic Church has imposed for several centuries, conferring on marriage a character of insolubility. Until the appearance of divorce after the French Revolution, the spouses were, once the vows had been pronounced, bound for life in this irreversible procedure … Or almost. A few rare reasons could lead to the annulment of the marriage: family ties, insufficient age and impotence.
Procreation, the primary goal of marriage
This is what the story of Adrien Charles de Beffroy and Marie Catherine Cordien tells us, who get married on January 7, 1739 in Laon. After a year of living together, the couple is torn apart. She says that since their union, her husband has never consummated the marriage and for this reason requests the annulment of the hymen. He defends the opposite and retorts that his wife regularly refuses his advances. The story may seem anecdotal, it is not because at the time, we did not play around with marital duty.
“It is in fact one of the primary goals of marriage, explains Antoine Follain, professor of modern history at the University of Strasbourg. The married couple must give birth and if one of the two spouses is not able to procreate, it is considered that he has cheated on his partner by breaking his engagement.“Fertility is indeed one of the four pillars of Catholic marriage. A basis so solid that in the event of refusal or inability to give birth, the only recourse remains annulment. Like a clause in a contract .
Marriage must be consummated to be valid.
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© Giovanni Boccacio, The Decameron
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The first traces of dissolution date back to the XVIe century but it’s a safe bet that these trials in impotence are older, “in short since Christian marriage has existed“, assumes the academic.”One could imagine that these procedures remained discreet, he emphasizes, but on the contrary, they were frequently displayed in the public square.“This is also how they crossed the centuries to reach us.”Sometimes they are only mentioned in a document, sometimes they make a lot of noise.“
Often, the publicity of the affair is a lever for the women who, by exposing the impotence, supposed or proven, of their husband exert pressure on him.
Proving the ability to give birth
The case of the Langey husbands is a particularly telling example, because it hit the headlines of its time. In 1659, three years after her marriage to the Marquis de Langey, Marie de Saint Simon accused him of impotence. The justice of the time is set in motion and begins the usual procedure: the two spouses are – separately – the subject of a “visit”, during which their genitals are examined. Sometimes these exams are enough to reveal some malformation or disease and the case is over. “At the time, the state of medicine only allowed us to observe external manifestations, we still do not understand anything about what is happening inside the human body.“, explains Antoine Follain.
To resolve disputes, the spouses were asked to perform the sexual act before Congress.
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© Giovanni Boccacio, The Decameron
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But in the Langey case, everything is in order: the sex of the marquis seems functional and his wife seems to have lost her virginity. Things could have ended there if M. de Langey had not boasted, insisting that the congress be convened. This French exception in the Europe of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was intended to settle definitively the question of impotence. “The spouses appeared before a dozen representatives of both sexes: doctors, surgeons and midwives and the husband was asked to perform the sexual act, in front of a witness, to prove his capacity to procreate.“, says the history professor.
A man would have to be marvelously resolute and even brutal if he did not disband, in case he was ready.
Well, unsurprisingly, the Marquis de Langey, as vigorous as he may be, does not manage to indulge in the sexual act in front of the college of observers who attend the scene and lose his trial. The marriage is annulled, he reimburses the dowry to his ex-wife and becomes the laughing stock of some of his contemporaries. His remarriage a few years later, from which six children were born, was not enough to restore his reputation. End of the story.
Pretext for divorce before time
Most of the time, it is the women who go to court to ask for a dissolution of the marriage. In his work “The court of impotence: virility and marital failures in ancient France“, which is now a reference in the field, Pierre Darmon only identifies 5% of cases relating to female sterility. One of them is described by Antoine Follain and Élise Eberlin in an academic article devoted to the subject in rural areas. .
Of course, the failure can originate from both sides, but it is much easier to prove in men than in women.
This is the case between a certain Mr. Lahure and his wife. After 27 years of living together, he attacks the latter for impotence. The rest of the story reveals – unsurprisingly – that in fact the husband had been engaged in an adulterous relationship with a maid for several years and was deliberately looking for an excuse to annul his marriage.
Often times, impotence trials hid larger marital problems.
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© Jean Marie Mixelle and Claude-Louis Desrais
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The arbitrary nature of these impotent judgments, very often to the disadvantage of the dishonored husband – forbidden to remarry – offered the women of the time a great opportunity to get rid of an unwanted husband. “The more business grew, the more we understood what was really going on: forced marriages, domestic violence or financial interests.“, details the academic.
Waiting for the Revolution
As time passes, we begin to realize that the practice of congress not only does not bring satisfactory results, but constitutes “a shameful and obscene practice“, explains the academic. She therefore disappeared in 1677, without questioning the nullity of the marriage for impotence, which will survive her for more than a century.”From the XVIIIe, it will be used less and less because the distance of the spouses is more admitted“, concludes Antoine Follain. Until the appearance of the law authorizing the divorce, August 30, 1792.
In the end, historians who have taken a serious look at the subject have identified around forty cases of impotence trials, spread over more than two centuries. If they seem so absurd today, it is because they denote a purely mechanical vision of the sexual act, without being attached to the psychological aspect. But even today, virility remains a delicate, even taboo concept.
An extract from the registry registers relating to the cassation of the marriage of Catherine Cordien and Adrien Charles Beffroy.
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© Departmental Archives of Aisne, B2742
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