History 3640 - the Challenges of Obtaining a Divorce in Medieval England

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Lastly, yet another obstacle that women had to cope with while going through a legal divorce was how it would effect the legitimacy of their children. Butler states in chapter five that in the later medieval period, legitimacy was paramount for both inheritance and entrance into ecclesiastical orders (Butler, 119). Furthermore, Butler states that parents were so highly aware of aspersions of illegitimacy that they went as far as to petition the pope for supporting documentation of truly legitimate children (Butler, 119). Therefore, the potential of having the legitimacy of a couple’s child being taken away deterred very likely deterred some women from pursuing divorces. Although this was not an issue for all families going through a divorce, in some cases the children of the couple were declared illegitimate as a result of the divorce. For instance, in chapter six, Butler describes how a couple’s son was ruled illegitimate because the church discovered that the parents, Reginald Cobham and his wife, Elizabeth married even though they both knew that they were cousins. Because of this, the church divorced them. The couple then purchased a dispensation to remarry, but the son was still ruled a bastard by king’s court because he was born before the annulment. Therefore, the son could not inherit, so their daughter, who was born after the dispensation, became the Reginald’s heir (Butler, 121). Although, when the divorce did cause children of the couple to be labeled as bastards, the church had an established tradition of enforcing the payments by the father for the bastard children (Butler, 121). It was common for the church to require the father to pay 2d. weekly for the support of the child. To enforce this rule, the church inflicted harsh punishments on fathers that did not pay the requested amount for the support of his child. Common consequences for failing to pay were excommunication and public whippings (Butler, 122).

Overall, any type of divorce in Medieval England had immense, mostly negative consequences for the woman involved. Divorces that took place within the court system were almost always guaranteed a to be lengthy, costly process that most couples could not afford to partake in. Even when the couple could afford a legal divorce, they faced the risk of having their reputation ruined and having their divorce denied by the court. Furthermore, many women did not even have reasons sufficient enough for the court to allow them a divorce trial. Butler explains in chapter one that for this reason, wealthy people during the time period tended to enter into incestuous marriages. This way, they knew their marriages could be annulled at need (Butler, 18). Furthermore, going through a divorce as a woman meant having to deal with risk of having a vengeful husband, fighting for the rights to her property and dowers, and figuring out how to support herself during and after the trial. In some cases, getting a divorce during the time period seemed to have caused more problems for the wife than it did solve problems. Therefore, it is completely understandable why many women avoided divorce all together and instead chose to stay in their unhappy marriages rather than to attempt to overcome all the potential obstacles.

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